By Robert Cruickshank
This week is the make or break week for the California high speed rail project. The legislature is still likely to vote on the project in a few days’ time, probably today. If the voter-approved bond money is not released by the legislature, California will forfeit the federal stimulus money as it will be redistributed around the country. Governor Jerry Brown is pulling out all the stops, now planning to link HSR funding to other rail projects, according to Matier and Ross at the San Francisco Chronicle:
In a move some see as an attempt to round up badly needed “yes” votes for the project, Gov. Jerry Brown and state Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, are insisting on an “all or nothing” vote on both the $68 billion rail line and millions of dollars for local “connectivity” projects.
In the Bay Area, those connections include:
– $140 million for new BART cars.
– $105 million to modernize Caltrain.