Bay Area has some catching up to do for high-speed rail stimulus cash

By Mike Rosenberg, San Mateo County Times

February 4, 2010

The state may expand its high-speed rail engineering team in the Bay Area as the region began racing Thursday against Southern California and the Central Valley for $2.25 billion in stimulus funds.

California High-Speed Rail Authority board member Rod Diridon said after a San Diego board meeting that of the four corridors eligible for the federal cash, the Los Angeles-to-Anaheim section was clearly leading. He said the corridor is about 18 months ahead of the San Francisco-to-San Jose section in terms of planning.

"We're going to have to catch up (in the Bay Area)," said Diridon, one of two Bay Area representative on the board, which is in charge of divvying up stimulus funds. "That doesn't mean shortcut — shortcuts are deadly."

The two other corridors eligible for stimulus cash are Fresno to Bakersfield and Merced to Fresno. The board decided it will give the most money to sections that can begin and finish construction the quickest.

Diridon said the authority has enough money to add to the engineering force responsible for building the San Francisco-to-San Jose section along the Caltrain tracks.

At the very least, he said they would "put a lot of pressure" on the Bay Area engineering team to maintain its schedule. In the Bay Area last year, the state extended a public outreach process by 30 days and its critical report on track alignment, originally scheduled for completion in December, now will be out in March.

The larger staff would not necessarily accelerate the process past checkpoints, only ensure planners don't fall behind schedule while holding all the public hearings they promised, Diridon said.

But many officials and residents in the Peninsula and South Bay have pushed for the opposite, hoping to slow down the process to make sure each detail is tirelessly examined. They already fear the White House stimulus grant awarded last week will spark the authority into a mad dash that could result in oversights and critical errors. The state needs to enter a construction contract by September 2012 or lose the federal money.

To make matters even trickier, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said last week the federal government would give $400 million in stimulus funds to San Francisco's Transbay Terminal. But the authority does not yet know whether that will come out of the $2.25 billion total.

Also at Thursday's board meeting, the authority announced it expects to have a $458 million budget for the next fiscal year, which begins in July. Diridon said the authority worked out the finances with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's office in anticipation of his May revise budget, but the Legislature will still need to approve it.

About half the money will go toward environmental planning and corridor studies while the rest will be invested in the protection of land subject to development along the planned route, he said.

Lastly, the authority board agreed to set the pay for its incoming executive director at $250,000 to $375,000. It expects to hire a replacement for outgoing Executive Director Mehdi Morshed by the end of March.

"That's obviously way above most state salaries, but we all recognize that this is the largest construction project in the nation's history," Diridon said.