GILROY, Calif. -- The first phase of California's $68 billion dollar high speed rail project is underway and it's being touted as cheaper, faster, and more convenient.
With no stop on the Central Coast, how convenient and cheap will it actually be? The Center for Investigative Action went to work to find out what operating a high speed rail will cost each of us, if the state can even get the money to build it.
People in support of the high speed say it's going to be cheaper, faster, and more convenient to travel. To hear the high speed rail authority pitch the project, you'll travel in luxurious electric trains at 220 miles per hour from L. A. to San Francisco in about 2 1/2 hours.
They say it also brings job! Around 100,000 construction jobs and as many as 450,000 permanent jobs in the next 25 years. However, one of the main criticisms and frankly unknowns of the project is the cost.
The Center for Investigative Action sought out a non partisan source to get the facts about how much the project will cost the state, but more importantly, you. Via Skype we spoke with Dr. Brian Weatherford, a fiscal analyst for the legislative analyst's office in Sacramento. "It's expected to cost us $68 to $100 billion and we don't know where that money is going to come from," said Weatherford.
Despite that warning from the LAO's office, the state is moving ahead. Financially, the plan has only been set to fund the first leg of the project which is $3 billion in one time funding from the federal government. $2.7 billion from the 2008 voter approved proposition one a funding, a total of $9.9 billion dollars in bonds. Yet, the LAO's office says only $500 million of prop 1-A bonds have been purchased to date. It's very optimistic to think that we'll be anywhere near pulling the money together to the entire system by 2020.
So, we took the next step taking construction out of the equation, which is by far the biggest and most mysterious cost. We figured out how much you will pay for high speed rail just to maintain the system if it is ever built. We went back to the LAO's office and asked Dr. Weatherford what the high speed rail debt service would be to Californians during operation and their calculations found it would cost $700 million a year for 30 years. Breaking that number down, assuming the population of California increased to an average of 48 million people over 30 years, the per person cost for high speed rail would be $14.58 each year for 30 years. A family of four would pay just under $60 a year.
Right now the high speed rail is proposed to go through the Gilroy Valley. HSR is proposed to go through the area but no official assignments will be made until 2014. After Gilroy the proposed plan takes the rail line east and through the Central Valley to Bakersfield and the Tehachipi Pass along Highway 58 before getting into LA.
We took the individual cost to the streets. Some people we spoke to off camera questioned who would actually be using the rail line, and is the future profit worth what taxpayers are paying to build and maintain it. Others said this project may put ca on track for the future. "I think it would be very minimal as opposed to the upkeep on a vehicle," said Fred Hererra.
In the end, the question still remains will the money come through to get high speed rail built. The high speed rail authority hopes to get more federal funding for the second leg of the project but isn't sure where that will come from beyond 2017 when the current federal funding runs out. The idea for that second phase is to take voter approved Prop 1-A Funding. That's only on paper, and the real money has not yet been secured.
