First U.S. high-speed rail gets approval from California legislature
Baku, July 7 (AZERTAC). America's first would-be high-speed rail connecting Los Angeles and San Francisco won a major victory Friday as both the California Senate and Assembly voted "Yes" for the project.
The California state Senate voted 21-16 late Friday after intense lobbying by California Governor Jerry Brown, Democratic leaders and labor groups.
On Thursday, the California state Assembly approved the bill on a 51-27 vote and sent it to the Senate for approval.
The bill authorizes California to begin selling 4.5 billion dollars in voter-approved bonds that includes 2.6 billion dollars to build an initial 130-mile stretch of the high-speed rail line in the Central Valley.
That will allow California to collect another 3.2 billion dollars in federal funding which could have been rescinded if lawmakers failed to act Friday.
"The Legislature took bold action today that gets Californians back to work and puts California out in front once again," said Governor Brown, a strong supporter of the high-speed rail project, said in a statement.
The bill now heads to Brown for signature to become law.
The overall cost of the project from Los Angeles to San Francisco is estimated at 68 billion dollars. But the initial proposal put it at 98 billion dollars. State authorities still have yet to identify where most of the remaining financing will come from.The project has become a partisan issue with Democrats in favor while the Republicans opposing in general in the process of debate in the past two decades.
Republicans called the project a boondoggle and claimed the state cannot afford in the midst of a serious budget crisis and high unemployment.
"It's unfortunate that the majority would rather spend billions of dollars that we don't have for a train to nowhere than keep schools open and harmless from budget cuts," said state Senator Tom Harman, a Republican from Huntington Beach in Southern California.
California lawmakers were under pressure from labor groups that say the project is sorely needed because it will bring jobs, particularly to a region with higher-than-average unemployment.
Governor Brown is counting on those federal funds and state bonds for a total of roughly 6 billion dollars to build the first segment.
Since Florida, Ohio and Wisconsin turned down federal money, California became the survivor to get federal funding for high-speed rail projects.
However, California faces a September 2017 federal deadline to finish the first segment of the rail line.
California voters voted for the high-speed rail line in 2008 to approve nearly 10 billion dollars in state bond to help finance the project.
However, a poll conducted in June by University of Southern California (USC) and the Los Angeles Times found that a majority of California voters would oppose the project if given another chance to vote on it.
A report by University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA) released in June said high-speed rail tends to create sprawl as it lowers the cost for commuters and makes more far-flung locations possible for bedroom communities. This may be considered a benefit by some and a detriment by others.
The California high-speed rail project is the centerpiece of U.S. President Barack Obama's priority to upgrade the nation's transportation infrastructure as he stated in this year's state of the union address.
The United States has fallen sharply in the World Economic Forum's ranking of national infrastructure systems in recent years. U.S. infrastructure ranked sixth in the world in the 2007-2008 report, but fell to 16th in the 2011-2012 report.
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