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| (CalHSRA) |
Over the last two years, the California High-Speed Rail Authority has prevailed in a series of court challenges to the project, won a federal exemption from state environmental rules, secured several key legislative victories that improved its future funding and made a politically savvy bet to move up by several years the inauguration of service in Southern California.
But the milestone marked by Tuesday's groundbreaking ceremony also will serve as a reminder of the enormous financial, technical and political risks still faced by the Los Angeles-to-San Francisco project.
(LAT)
The slow pace of land acquisition has been acknowledged as a problem by the California High-Speed Rail Authority, which faces a Sept. 30, 2017 deadline to spend more than $3 billion in federal transportation and stimulus funds for construction in the Valley between Merced and Bakersfield.
The rail authority needs about 525 parcels to build the rail line and related structures, such as bridges and road overpasses, in its Madera-Fresno construction segment. The agency has made formal offers to every property owner along the route in that segment.
As of this week, the rail authority has secured title to 96 parcels, said Lisa Marie Alley, a spokeswoman for the agency -- less than 20 percent of what it needs. And that doesn't count another 539 pieces of property required for the next construction stretch from the south end of Fresno to near the Tulare-Kern county line. Alley said the agency has made initial offers to 115 landowners.
But that is well behind schedule. By this time, the agency anticipated having sealed the deals on about 300 parcels in the Madera-Fresno segment for contractors to work on, according to the $1 billion construction contract between the rail authority and the construction consortium of Tutor Perini/Zachry/Parsons.
(Bakersfield Californian)
What hasn’t changed since the federal grants began flowing four years ago is a Sept. 30, 2017, deadline for substantial completion of the rail sections in the San Joaquin Valley. That’s the date by which the state rail authority must spend its federal money. The rail authority has about $6 billion — a combination of the federal funds and matching Prop. 1A money — available to build the backbone of its system from Merced to Bakersfield. That’s a little under 20% of the $31 billion that it’s expected to cost to build the first operational segment between Merced and Burbank by the early 2020s. It’s also less than 10% of the anticipated $68 billion cost to build the 520-mile Phase 1 system from San Francisco to Los Angeles by the late 2020s.
Despite the downtown Fresno setting for Tuesday’s ceremony, the first major construction on the Madera-Fresno segment is anticipated to be at the eastern edge of Madera, where an elevated bridge will be built to span the Fresno River, Highway 145 and Raymond Road just west of the existing BNSF Railway freight tracks. Downtown Fresno is expected to be the site of some other early work, including relocation of utilities to make way for construction.
(SacBee)
It's difficult to predict how much state funding will grow as California's cap-and-trade program kicks into gear, but some economists say the project will get another $4 billion through 2020, and the Legislative Analyst's Office forecasts revenue could climb close to $2 billion annually.
The roughly $12.6 billion the authority has now is a far cry from the $67.6 billion it says it needs to complete the line, but Richard says he's not worrying. Crucial private investment will come in due time, he said.
"We're counting on the private sector to provide about a third of the money needed to complete the system," Richard said, meaning the state expects investors to pump more than $22 billion into the project.
The exact costs and construction timelines of large public works projects are commonly murky. Anyone who has ever hired a contractor to work on a house can tell you the same thing, said Jack Pitney, a political expert at Claremont McKenna College.
(SJ Mercury News)
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