|
Big Chunk of High Speed Rail Money Goes to California
 The $2.25 billion will pay to finish engineering and environmental reviews and provide seed money to start building the Anaheim-to-San Francisco route. The $2.25 billion in federal stimulus funds awarded this week to the California high-speed rail project ensures that construction can proceed on a 520-mile route between Anaheim and San Francisco within three years, rail officials said Thursday.Mehdi Morshed, executive director of the California High-Speed Rail Authority, said the infusion of federal dollars would pay for completion of the project's engineering and environmental reviews and provide a significant amount of seed money to start building the system by September 2012, as required by the federal grant. "We have been aggressively pushing the environmental and engineering work on this project," Morshed said. "We didn't have assurances we would have money for construction. Now we do." California has spent a lot of State money on passenger trains, trying to wean itself from the love affair with the automobile. Its trains carry tens of thousand each day that would oterwise further clog the freeways. Plus, I'm sure San Fran Nan appreciated the billions. Morshed said the grant gives the California project the potential to generate $4.5 billion in additional funding by allowing the state to match the federal allocation. If the Legislature approves, the money will come from issuing bonds authorized by Proposition 1A. Passed in 2008, the ballot measure approved the sale of up to $10 billion in bonds to finance the high-speed rail project. That part might be interesting! Posted by: Bobby 2010-02-02 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=289474 |