A LOOK AHEAD * Despite the shadow of the troubled MTA and uncertain financial support, a state agency pushes ahead as . . . $20.7-Billion Train Seeks Fast Track

While the Metropolitan Transportation Authority is having trouble raising the $1 billion it needs to build a three-mile subway extension, an obscure state agency is busy promoting a $20.7-billion, 676-mile high-speed train designed to streak between Northern and Southern California.

Such a massive undertaking--bigger and more expensive than the celebrated Anglo-French Chunnel--may appear to most people as the sort of fantasy that appeals mainly to train buffs, lobbyists and contractors desperate for their next public sector fix.

Yet the state’s High Speed Rail Authority is quietly working to draft a measure to put before voters within two years, possibly a quarter-cent increase in the sales tax to pay for the system.

As envisioned, trains running up to 220 mph would whisk passengers between Los Angeles and San Francisco in about 2 hours, 50 minutes. The average one-way fare would be $40. The system, its proponents say, could open in 10 to 15 years with 22 stations, with branch lines to Sacramento, San Jose and San Diego.

Recently, the idea has won new support from critics of Los Angeles International Airport’s expansion. Proponents say a bullet train also is vital to preparing California--with 32 million residents--for the arrival of 16 million more by 2020.

Overcoming the financial and political challenges, however, could be a tougher obstacle to surmount than the Tehachapis.

“I just don’t see how they’re going to pay for it, especially given the fiasco that we’ve had here with the MTA,” said Catherine Burke, associate professor at USC’s School of Public Administration.

Even though Los Angeles County’s MTA is not involved, its notoriety has cast a long and forbidding shadow over the high-speed rail proposal.

“There is a degree of skepticism, especially in Southern California, because of the experience with MTA,” acknowledged state Sen. Jim Costa (D-Fresno), a high-speed rail proponent.

State Sen. Quentin L. Kopp (I-San Francisco), who wrote the legislation creating the state authority, said the agency needs to make it clear that it is not the MTA. Its commissioners “are not politicians,” he said.

“We are approaching it in a realistic way,” said Mehdi Morshed, staff director of the Senate Transportation Committee and a member of the High Speed Rail Authority. “The Legislature and governor have said that California should have a high-speed rail in the future. They charged us with figuring out what’s the best possible plan to put before voters. It’s up to the people to decide what the future is going to be.”

Edward G. Jordan, chairman of the state authority and a retired railroad executive, added that “it’s very difficult for the public to address an issue which is very far out into the future. We need to be sure we can create for them the sense of urgency that is required to meet the demands of the state for passenger transportation by the year 2010.”

The state authority recently voted to spend $1 million to hire a “public outreach team” of nine political consulting and public relations firms to promote the project “so it doesn’t sound like science fiction.”

High-speed rail, however, probably will be opposed by the powerful airline industry, which helped kill a high-speed rail proposal in Texas.

“The airlines will fight you every step of the way and undercut your fares when you get going,” said Richard Stanger, executive director of the Southern California Regional Rail Authority. A spokesman for Southwest Airlines said that if the rail line needs public subsidies, “we have a problem because it’s hard to compete . . . when the government is giving money to your competitor.”

But state officials say the bullet train--which would be privately run--would operate without taxpayer subsidies.

While a high-speed train appears futuristic, lobbyists for potential contractors already are attending the authority’s meetings.

“We’re being lobbied by everybody,” said Jerry Epstein, a former Los Angeles airport commissioner who serves on the state authority and also supports the development of Palmdale Airport.

The proposal was real enough that cities lobbied hard to be included--or, in the case of environmentally sensitive coastal towns in Southern California, excluded--from the proposed route. Trains between Los Angeles and San Diego would run inland, near Interstate 15, but officials say the route is subject to change.

This is not the state’s first try at launching a so-called bullet train. Efforts in the 1980s were unsuccessful, mostly because proponents thought they could build the systems without public funding, officials say.

The United States is years behind Europe and Japan in running high-speed trains--France’s tres grand vitesse or “very great speed” set a record in tests by running at 320 mph, but generally operates at 186 mph. Amtrak is spending $2.4 billion to develop a passenger train that will travel up to 150 mph on the nation’s busiest commuter rail corridor--Boston-New York-Washington--beginning late next year.

In Washington, Federal Railroad Administrator Jolene Molitoris is closely watching California’s efforts.

“We’re 604 days from the year 2000. We have to be thinking about a 21st-century transportation system,” she said in an interview last week. “People are looking for opportunities not to have to drive.”

Separately, the Southern California Assn. of Governments (SCAG) is working with private groups studying construction of an $8.2-billion, 260-mile high-speed rail line in the Los Angeles region. It would be built mostly in freeway medians and stop at 11 stations, including downtown Los Angeles, LAX, Van Nuys, Palmdale, Arcadia, Ontario, Anaheim, a proposed El Toro airport and San Bernardino.

Unlike the state system, the SCAG system would be largely privately financed.

In the typical schizophrenic world of Southern California’s transit planning, SCAG is examining magnetic levitation technology--trains lifted by powerful electromagnets--while the state authority is leaning toward conventional “steel wheel on steel rail’ trains, although a final decision has not been made.

The state rail system would have to be built virtually from scratch--on its own track and possibly on elevated routes through highly developed stretches, fully separated from street crossings and completely fenced with an electronic intrusion warning system. The maximum speeds through urban areas would be 125 mph.

“We have to have the same sort of vision as leaders had in the ‘50s and ‘60s in California when they were willing to embark on the State Water Project,” said Costa.

“Realistically, can you even handle 100 million passengers at LAX,” Morshed added. “How many more runways do you have to build? Is the air space available to handle all of those flights? You double the people going to and from LAX, how do they get there?”

Airport officials have proposed a number of traffic improvements in conjunction with LAX expansion, including extending the Century Freeway and the MTA’s Green Line to a proposed international terminal on the west side of the airport, building a “people mover” connecting the old and new terminals and constructing roads connecting the freeway with the airport.

But Los Angeles City Councilwoman Ruth Galanter, fighting airport expansion on behalf of her constituents living around LAX, said that even if additional onramps and offramps are built on the San Diego Freeway, “you still have to get to the exit. Everybody who drives the 405 today knows there’s a problem.”

Rail proponents hope the high-speed proposal will be debated in this year’s gubernatorial election. “Whoever the next governor is, he or she is going to have to embrace this proposal . . . to make it happen,” said Costa.

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Speed Train

The state High Speed Rail Authority is working on a plan to build a 676-mile high-speed rail line in California. Propoents hope to go before voters within two years with a funding measure, possibly a quarter-cent sales tax increase.

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Cost to Build: $20.7 billion

Speed:

Maximum: 220 mph

Average: 160 mph

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Typical Fare:

L.A. to San Francisco: $40

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Express Travel Time (Hours and minutes)

L.A. to San Francisco: 2:49

L.A. to San Jose: 2:30

L.A. to Sacramento: 2:31

L.A. to San Diego: 1:12