In order to have access to the full $6.3 billion in funding to begin building the 140-mile Central Valley segment, construction must begin in 2012. A looming deadline is Jan. 1 when the state legislature must approve their business plan.
"They have to answer some very skeptical legislators and general public with an adequate business plan," said state Sen. Alan Lowenthal (D-Long Beach). "Every report until now has been challenged. Let's deal with reality for a change."
"The plan will include new projections on construction costs, ridership and passenger fares. In another report expected next month, the authority also is supposed to identify the sources of money to build the system."
The authority has a new, well-financed opponent in the Central Valley to confront in the nation's largest farm, J.G. Boswell Co., who claims that the tracks will "shut down a company cotton gin complex, seed oil plant, private airport and maze of irrigation canals and levees, according to a company attorney."
Thanks to E&E Publishing - Greenwire
Comments
Where's the business plan for highways, freeways & roads?
By asking the High Speed Rail Authority for a business plan for a transportation system that would be of immeasurable benefit to the economy and environment, the pro-car, pro-oil and pro-sprawl crowd is pointing out the tiny sliver in the eye of proponents of mass transit and smart growth, while ignoring the giant log in their own eye that is the exorbitant and unsustainable cost of automotivism, sprawl and oil wars.
The HSR authority would do well to consider that fact and not be too bothered by those who would preserve the status quo, which has caused so much damage to the economy and to the world.