“We’ve gone from a conversation of ‘What are we going to do?’ to ‘Let’s go do it,’” he said. Kelly, who has led the authority for 4½ years, said that for the first time in a long time it feels like the bullet train is making significant progress, rather than merely fighting for its political and financial survival. Lawmakers also dropped a push to cut costs by using diesel-powered trains, rather than electrified track, in the Central Valley. The Rail Authority’s push to approve plans and environmental clearance for extensions to the Bay Area and Los Angeles is, in part, designed to assure voters the project remains statewide in its scope.ĭemocrats in the state Assembly, led by the powerful Los Angeles delegation, had pushed for years to take a chunk of the $4.2 billion in bond funds for the Central Valley line and instead spend it on regional transportation projects in major metro areas that could eventually connect with high-speed rail.īut that standoff ended in June, when the Rail Authority emerged with its bond funding intact, though its operations will be overseen by a new inspector general. Gavin Newsom stunned many state legislators and rail advocates in 2019 when he announced he would focus first on the Central Valley line due largely to rising costs. Originally, the Rail Authority planned to build track inward from Los Angeles and the Bay Area, including lines running east from San Francisco and Silicon Valley. “The fact of the matter is that the federal government gave us money to start in the Central Valley.” “There’s a realization, a reality, that construction started where it started,” he told The Chronicle. Then, state legislators agreed in June to release $4.2 billion in bonds to complete construction on the project’s Central Valley line, ending a years-long standoff that was largely fueled by anger over California’s decision to build the train outward from the Central Valley first, rather than inward from Los Angeles and the Bay Area.īrian Kelly, CEO of the Rail Authority, said all those developments put together show the authority is doing what it’s promised to do for years: build the most financially feasible segment of the train first while continuing to make headway on extensions to the state’s most populous coastal regions. It’s also the latest in a series of wins for high-speed rail in recent months, a reprieve after years of spiraling costs and litigation caused some Democratic state legislators to consider pulling the plug.Įarlier this spring, the Rail Authority board approved the train’s 90-mile segment to connect Silicon Valley with Merced in the Central Valley construction has been under way in the Central Valley for about seven years. Nevertheless, approval of the project’s final spur north into the heart of the Bay Area is a significant milestone. For starters, California hasn’t figured out where it will get up to $25 billion needed to build the San Francisco and Silicon Valley bullet train extensions. Stations are slated for San Francisco International Airport/Millbrae and the Caltrain Mission Bay station at Fourth and King streets, which would eventually be replaced by a station in the basement of Salesforce Transit Center. The line could open for service by as soon as 2033, the authority projects.
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