California Assembly leader signals support, but no added money yet, for high-speed rail
A key legislative leader in Sacramento signaled his support Friday for “delivering a functional high-speed rail system to Californians.”
State Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, D-Lakewood, took to Twitter to say he wants to continue to work with Gov. Gavin Newsom to provide money to continue construction that is under way in Fresno County and the central San Joaquin Valley.
But in a letter Friday to Newsom, Rendon and Assembly Transportation Committee Chair Laura Friedman, D-Glendale, suggest that additional funds sought in the springtime by the governor won’t be forthcoming until early 2022 at the earliest. And even then, it may only be a portion of what Newsom wants to complete the work going on between Merced and Bakersfield.
In his May 2021 budget proposal for the 2021-22 fiscal year, Newsom asked the Legislature to release the remaining $4.2 billion from Proposition 1A, the high-speed rail bond measure approved by California voters in 2008.
Among the billions included for transportation projects in the budget passed by the state Assembly and Senate in June and sent to Newsom for his signature, the requested funds from Proposition 1A were nowhere to be found.
Instead, officials with the California High-Speed Rail Authority were left to hold out hope that the Legislature and Newsom could come to subsequent agreement on a post-budget deal for the funds.
“It’s not unprecedented that a little more time is needed to finalize the deal,” Brian Annis, the rail authority’s chief financial officer, said during the summer. “There’s a lot of very important work, not just high-speed rail, that’s on hold right now until final action.”
Such an agreement for the bullet-train project, however, did not materialize before the Assembly and Senate wrapped up their sessions last month. Rendon and some other legislators have pushed for the prospect of funneling some of the high-speed rail bond money into projects in other parts of the state.
Slowing down spending
In a Sept. 23 budget presentation to the rail authority’s board, Annis acknowledged the Legislature’s deferral of action until after the start of 2022. He added that the delay is forcing the agency to reduce its planned $3.2 billion in spending to match the available money coming to it.
The adjustments to the agency’s budget amount to about $908 million. They include pushing back the award of a $300 million contract for track, signal-control and overhead electrical systems for the route segments under construction between Madera and Shafter, and also delaying contracts for designing route extensions into downtown Merced and Bakersfield.
Annis said it will also mean a slowdown in spending on current construction by about $407 million through June 2022.
“Work will continue to progress without a delay of activity,” Annis reported to the board. But additional changes in revenue or spending trends could force consideration of even more adjustments to the construction effort in the Valley.
If the stalemate between Newsom and legislators is prolonged beyond early 2022, it could set the stage for construction delays on the already-behind-schedule project, and layoffs of workers on the Valley construction segments.
The Associated Press reported this week that Friedman is calling for a delay for electrification of the tracks in the Valley. Instead, she is advocating for consolidating a single station in Merced to create a hub for Amtrak’s San Joaquin passenger trains between Bakersfield, Oakland and Sacramento; ACE (Altamont Corridor Express) commuter trains from Stockton and a future Merced extention to San Jose; and a future high-speed rail line between Bakersfield and Merced.
“I’m not arguing that’s an optimal solution, but I think that people need to be honest about what we have the money to do right now,” Friedman said. She has proposed releasing up to $2.5 billion of the remaining Proposition 1A money now, and make the high-speed rail agency come back to the Legislature for approval before entering into a track-and-systems contract.
Differing priorities for money
Newsom and the rail agency want to move forward with electrification because that’s a key component of what was promised to voters in Proposition 1A: a system of electric-powered trains, capable of carrying passengers at up to 220 mph, running between San Francisco and Los Angeles by way of the San Joaquin Valley.
The Bakersfield-to-Merced segment is part of a scaled-back vision unveiled by Newsom a couple of years ago to reflect the financial realities of limited funds to complete the entire statewide project. The future segments from the San Joaquin Valley into the Bay Area and the Los Angeles Basin would be funded and built only when more money became available.
“We believe the time for slow, diesel-emitting rail is over,” Newsom spokesperson Daniel Lopez said in a statement to The Associated Press, “and we remain committed to a transportation future that moves people quickly and does so without further polluting our environment.”
Friday’s letter by Friedman and Rendon spells out their desire for more high-speed rail funding for the Los Angeles region “that could include advance design work in the HSR Palmdale to Burbank and/or Burbank to (Los Angeles) Union Station corridors.”
They also propose linking their approval of high-speed rail funds to allocating more money from the state’s general fund – the pot of taxpayer money from which many of the state’s day-to-day bills are paid – for other transportation projects across the state, including $4 billion in the Los Angeles region.
“Given that billions of dollars of additional General Fund revenues are likely to be available next year, there is an opportunity to both move HSR forward and provide even more funding for various types of transportation projects statewide,” Friedman and Rendon wrote.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
This story was originally published October 15, 2021 at 5:41 PM with the headline "California Assembly leader signals support, but no added money yet, for high-speed rail."
