Panel Keeps Las Vegas-to-Anaheim Super-Speed Train on Track

The bistate commission working to link Las Vegas and Anaheim with a super-speed train voted Saturday to proceed with plans to build the $4-billion project.

The California-Nevada Super Speed Train Commission voted 16 to 1 to continue the project-planning process and to call for proposals to build the 300-m.p.h. futuristic train.

Ontario, Calif. Mayor Howard Snider cast the only dissenting vote.

Snider said he feared a super-speed train station near his city would add to traffic congestion and pollution in the Orange County area.

He said his vote reflects the fact that his concerns have not been answered by the commission, its consultants and Transrapid--a West German super-speed train developer.

Transrapid appears to be the only company willing to privately build, finance and operate the magnetically levitated train, said the Ontario mayor.

“We really have only one potential bidder,” Snider said. “To go ahead with a mag-lev train with one bidder in there, I think they’re going to be calling all the shots. I don’t think it’s right.”

However, Las Vegas City Councilman Arnie Adamsen, who chairs the commission, disagreed and said Transrapid will not dictate to the commission. “It’s going to be a cooperative effort,” Adamsen said.

He said other companies interested in building the train can register with the commission between Jan. 3 and Jan. 24, the registration deadline commissioners set Saturday for companies planning to seek the train franchise.

Adamsen said a French company, TGW, which has developed a conventional style train that carries passengers at speeds up to 170 m.p.h., has not dropped out of the running.

However, the French company was not represented at Saturday’s meeting.

At its October meeting, the commission selected Anaheim, 27 miles from downtown Los Angeles, as the California terminus for the proposed train. The board also decided to ask the company eventually chosen to build the train to consider running a spur from Victorville to Palmdale.

Los Angeles officials have pushed recently for a station in Palmdale because the city is building a reliever airport in the rapidly growing community located in the northern portion of the San Fernando Valley.

The Anaheim station likely would be built near Anaheim Stadium. Orange County Supervisor Don R. Roth, a former Anaheim mayor, has suggested a 17.4-acre site next to the existing Amtrak station and behind the stadium for a high-speed train terminal. The site is now used by county flood-control officials and has a county maintenance and repair shop.

When Anaheim was selected as the terminus in October, Roth predicted that the rail system would be “a big boost for our tourism industry, and more importantly . . . a financially sound system.”

A consultant hired to study possible routes has estimated that an Anaheim-Las Vegas line, also stopping in Ontario, would draw 6.5 million round-trip passengers annually.

By contrast, a line between the northern San Fernando Valley and Las Vegas, stopping in Palmdale, would draw only 2.3 million passengers, the consultant said.

The consultant also predicted that while the super train would create between 24,000 and 53,000 jobs, up to 47% of them in Southern California, auto traffic on the streets near the Anaheim station would jump from 9,700 trips on most days up to 31,000 trips on “peak Sundays.”

However, that increase in pollution could be offset a commuters using the super train instead of their cars to travel between the cities.

Las Vegas officials estimate that about 60% of the city’s visitors come from Southern California.