USA: California state governor Gavin Newsom has signed into law legislation boosting the long-term funding allocation for the planned Los Angeles – San Francisco high speed rail route that has been planned and partially constructed over the past 15 years. Newsom’s formal approval on September 19 follows an agreement by politicians in the state legislature 10 days earlier to provide $1bn per annum until 2045 to fund the scheme.
‘I am grateful to Governor Newsom, our legislative leaders, and allies across the state and the nation whose partnership and resolve helped make this possible’, said California High Speed Rail Authority Chief Executive Ian Choudri when the funding agreement was announced. ‘Today’s agreement has made a big, bold statement about California’s future — one that will create jobs, cut pollution, and connect and transform communities across the state.
‘This funding agreement resolves all identified funding gaps for the Early Operating Segment in the Central Valley and opens the door for meaningful public-private engagement with the programme.’
The authority and the state’s high speed rail advocates believe that the state’s commitment to long term funding, which will largely be supported by revenues from ‘cap and invest’ carbon trading rights, could now foster more private investment in the programme. ‘We congratulate the broad coalition of unions, environmental and progressive groups, businesses and other high speed rail advocates who worked tirelessly to help secure approval of this landmark investment’, commented Robert Pearsall, the California Political Director at advocacy group US High-Speed Rail.
While a substantial amount of civil engineering work is underway in the Central Valley of the state, much remains to be done to connect this isolated section with the major population centres of the Bay Area and Los Angeles. The authority confirmed in August that it was refining options to achieve this goal, aligned to the amount of long-term funding that it could secure.
