(The following story by Rasha Aly appeared on The Desert Sun website on September 21.)
PALM SPRINGS, Calif. — The idea of a new rail line in the Coachella Valley may be grand, but officials say it will cost $1 billion to establish.
“You got to have money to do this,” said Bill Bronte, chief of the California Department of Transportation, Division of Rail.
Officials from Amtrak, the California Department of Transportation and Riverside County Transportation Commission told community members Saturday during an informational passenger train meeting that money is needed before they can add a new rail line to the Coachella Valley.
The meeting was at the University of California, Riverside Graduate Center Auditorium.
The $1 billion plan would include adding three trains from Indio to Los Angeles, seven days a week and upgrading all rail lines in Southern California.
Coming up with the money is not an easy job when the economy is in limbo.
In the California budget, $86 million goes toward paying for its rail lines, Bronte said.
Amtrak doesn’t have the money either, said Richard Phelps, who moved to Washington, D.C., from Los Angeles last year after being promoted to Amtrak’s vice president of Transportation.
There have been times when states have asked for an expansion of the rail system, but Amtrak didn’t have the capital to pay for the expansion.
Besides, Union Pacific Corp., which owns the tracks Amtrak trains use, won’t sit down to talk unless the money is available, said Paul Dyson, the Railroad Passenger Association of California president.
As an idea, Sheldon Sloan, a Los Angeles lawyer who has a home in Rancho Mirage, suggested a pilot program that adds morning rail lines to and from Los Angeles to Indio, which he said might be successful enough to encourage federal lawmakers to fund a larger program.
The valley has Amtrak rail service, but it’s limited to stops in Palm Springs at 6:37 a.m. and 5:06 p.m. on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.
Transportation officials also added safety would be a focus.
Recent area train crashes, such as the Sept. 13 Metrolink crash in Los Angeles County, brought safety to the forefront as well.
Considered the deadliest U.S. train crash in 15 years, a Metrolink train on its way to Ventura County from Los Angles collided with a freight train, killing 25 people.
A preliminary investigation determined the Metrolink engineer failed to stop at a red light.
Dyson said the crash concerns him. “But we are not afraid of it,” he said.