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California High Speed Rail Competes for Federal Stimulus; Benefits from State Bond Approval

For Californians anticipating a high speed rail system connecting Northern and Southern California, November’s Proposition 1A, the Obama Administration’s commitment to high speed rail, and recent federal monies are making the project more attainable than ever. While critics of the project’s viability still exist, TPR/MIR presents the following interview with the executive director of the California High Speed Rail Authority, Mehdi Morshed, who provides a comprehensive status report on the proposed system.

Published Wednesday June 3, 2009

1735 words

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Mehdi Morshed

A lot has happened since we last spoke to you in April 2008. The $10 billion bond to support high speed rail passed in the state of California and now there is the federal stimulus money allotted for high speed rail. How is the High Speed Rail Authority utilizing the monies available?

Over the past ten years we have been going through the arduous process of completing the initial feasibility studies for high speed rail and going through the process of developing programs and environmental documents that will establish the potential route. We have put together a team of world-renowned experts to go to the next phase—actually starting construction. The work and construction starts with the project-level environmental work and engineering. We have that team in place. We are waiting for funding. The voters have approved the funding, which means that now we are full speed ahead with environmental plans for the project and engineering. Of course the addition of the federal stimulus money puts some additional pressure because we may have money faster than we expected. All of those are very positive events and have finally made it clear that it’s no longer a question of whether or not we are going to build a high speed train. Now the question is, “How quickly can we build a high speed train?”

As you said, you’ve done program-level EIRs and EISs. What is the status of those processes? How are you going to go forward, as an agency, to accomplish those project-specific EIRs and EISs?