Council to Vote on Effort to Kill High-Speed Rail

The Palo Alto City Council will tonight vote on whether to support a burgeoning effort to axe the statewide high-speed rail project.

The “Revote High Speed Rail” initiative will appear on the fall ballot if enough signatures are gathered, and if passed, would immediately halt the sale of state bonds used to fund high-speed rail, effectively killing the project.

The initiative was co-authored by California Senator Doug LaMalfa and retired US Congressman George Radanovich. It is being supported by the City Rail Committee, which has recommended that the full council do the same. The City has already gone on record stating that rail project today differs too much from the original project that was proposed to and approved by voters in 2008, and is therefore illegal.

“Council is concerned that the economic viability of HSR is highly questionable because the Business Plan is based on faulty assumptions and, therefore not credible,” wrote Richard Hackman in a report delivered to council in advance of Monday night’s meeting.

The vote comes on the heels of a major funding boost by Governor Jerry Brown, who earlier this month signed a bill into law authorizing $4.76 billion of the nearly $10 billion in voter-approved funding to be released to start construction of the project and fund a massive Caltrain modernization effort.

A report this morning in the San Francisco Chronicle found that residents there and around the Bay Area should brace now for another round of costs—totaling $650 million in toll hikes and taxes—that will be needed to continue funding the project.