FAST TRAINS COULD CONNECT CALIFORNIA.

Byline: Steve Lawrence Associated Press 

Arda Paley set out from Burbank one recent Monday morning to visit her niece in Sacramento. She arrived nearly nine hours later - after riding on two buses and a train.

In a decade or so, travelers may be able to board a train in Southern California and make the same trip in less than three hours, at speeds of more than 200 mph.

``That would be nice,'' says the soft-spoken Paley, 73, who prefers train travel over driving or flying.

A state board is drafting plans for a high-speed rail system that would link San Diego, Los Angeles, Sacramento and the San Francisco Bay Area - plus the Antelope Valley, if Antelope Valley leaders' lobbying efforts succeed - but the project must clear some big roadblocks before the first train leaves the station.

The California High-Speed Rail Authority is grappling with several questions. Among them: which routes to take, which cities to serve and, more importantly, how to finance the $23 billion to $31 billion project in a way acceptable to a skeptical Legislature and governor.

Antelope Valley Board of Trade and Lancaster Chamber of Commerce leaders are recruiting delegates to attend a June 16 meeting in Los Angeles of the authority, whose directors will decide whether the train will travel up Interstate 5 through Gorman or through Lancaster and Palmdale.

The valley group will travel by bus and Metrolink to the meeting.

Competition for funding will be intense, says John Shields, executive director of the Train Riders Association of California, a nonprofit group that supports expanded rail passenger service.

``Without a lot of help from local agencies, from people all over the state and leadership support from the governor, it may be that this project gets buried,'' Shields says.

Supporters say high-speed rail is a convenient, environmentally friendly system that will ease California's transportation problems as its population balloons in the next century.

California will have 58.7 million residents by 2040, a 75 percent increase, state experts predict.

``We are going to have to find ways that people don't have to drive as much or we are going to have a virtually unlivable state,'' said Jerry Meral, executive director of the Planning and Conservation League, an environmental group.

Europe and Japan have used high-speed trains for years, and Amtrak plans to introduce 150-mph trains on its crowded Boston-to-Washington run in fall.

In Europe, bullet trains are so popular that airlines have reduced service on some routes, Shields said.

Dominick Albano, a spokesman for Amtrak, which could end up running the system, said the biggest challenge to California high-speed rail is politics.

``The technology is there. The market is there,'' Albano said.

Getting the project through the Legislature will be difficult. A huge demand for infrastructure improvements is among the competing interests.

The state Transportation Commission estimates California will need $116.5 billion over the next decade for state and local transportation, including $26 billion to repair and replace systems and equipment.

Gov. Gray Davis has given mixed signals about high-speed rail. In March, he referred to the project as a ``Buck Rogers'' system and said he'd prefer to improve commuter trains.

But five days later he told his Commission on Building for the 21st Century that long-range high-speed rail is ``definitely . . . a possibility.''

Davis spokesman Michael Bustamante said the governor's earlier remarks were misinterpreted - that he wasn't ruling out high-speed rail but viewed it as a longer-term project than adding commuter trains.

Assemblyman Dean Florez, a high-speed rail supporter, said lawmakers will resist the project if it costs too much.

Michael Tennenbaum, the rail authority's chairman, agreed.

``We are spending a lot of time trying to get the price of the project down,'' Tennenbaum said.

One way to save would be upgrading tracks between San Diego, Los Angeles, the San Francisco area and Sacramento to handle trains running up to 100 mph instead of 70 mph, and build a 200 mph-plus, high-speed line through the San Joaquin Valley to Los Angeles and the Bay Area, he said.

But the project's planners face a delicate balancing act. If they scale back service too much, it could cost them valuable political support and riders.

At a recent authority board meeting, San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown touted high-speed rail as the state's next great improvement, equating it to the State Water Project and public universities.

Minutes later, Brown told reporters he will oppose the project if the trains stop in Oakland or San Jose instead of San Francisco.

Florez, D-Bakersfield, suggested the project would have a better chance for legislative approval if the authority's plan focuses on private investors and state revenue bonds to pay for construction.

Revenue bonds would be paid off by fares, may not need voter approval and probably would be more acceptable to lawmakers than a tax increase or voter-approved general obligation bonds that taxpayers would pay off.

``My feeling is, in surveying members, they are going to be looking for something that costs less than $20 billion, that incorporates private funding, revenue bonds'' and regional train improvements, Florez said.

Medhi Morshed, the authority's executive director, said the state may need to tap its treasury, raise taxes or find federal funds to supplement what it raises from the bonds. Revenue bonds would not be enough, he said.

Florez also recommended that rail advocates take a go-slow approach, instead of trying to push the project to make next year's November ballot, if voter

approval is needed.

But Meral warns that too much of a delay could boost construction costs, as the price of right-of-way increases.

The authority may be able to put a financing plan on the ballot without legislative approval. Board members have promised not to do that, and Sen. Kevin Murray, D-Los Angeles, is sponsoring a bill that would require the board to submit its plan to lawmakers.

Surveys show travelers would use the trains, but Murray, citing infrastructure needs, questions whether the timing is right.

Shields says it may take a ballot initiative to get the trains running.

``The authority has got to sell it to the Legislature, and you've got huge money interests that don't want to see it happen: big oil, big highways and some airlines,'' he said. ``They want to keep us driving down the freeway to Los Angeles in a car.''

RAIL SYSTEM AT A GLANCE

Here's a look at California's proposed high-speed rail system:

A nine-member state board is drafting a plan for a rail system that would include a very-high-speed rail ``spine'' that would connect Los Angeles and the San Francisco areas, plus possibly San Diego and Sacramento, with trains that would hit speeds of more than 200 mph.

The board's members are chairman Michael Tennenbaum, the head of Tennebaum and Co., a financial services firm in Century City; Los Angeles businesswoman Donna Andrews; San Francisco physician Ernest Bates; Los Angeles developer Jerry Epstein; San Diego civil engineer John Fowler; Fresno business administrator Edward Graveline; San Bernardino developer William Leonard; former state Sen. James Mills, D-San Diego; and retired union official Tom Stapleton.

Construction cost projections for the full San Diego to Sacramento and San Francisco line would range from $23 billion to $31 billion, depending on the type of train used.

The line would run up the Central Valley and cut over to the San Francisco area through the Altamont or Pacheco passes. It could continue up the valley to Sacramento.

The plan will also include a series of supplemental rail lines with trains that would could top 100 mph.

The authority plans to submit the plan to the Legislature by the end of the year.

SOURCE: Associated Press

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BOX: (Ran in AV Edition only) RAIL SYSTEM AT A GLANCE (See text)