(The following editorial appeared on the Sacramento Bee website on February 15.)
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A handful of Southern California politicians are ticked off at Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The governor’s sin? He has proposed to spend $170 million in transportation bonds to clear up some bottlenecks and make other track improvements to rail corridors owned by two private freight railroads. Such criticism is misplaced.
Proposition 1B, the $20 billion transportation bond approved by voters last November, included more than $2 billion specifically set aside to improve the movement of goods in trade corridors. Privately owned freight railroads are key players in moving goods throughout California, particularly from the traffic clogged ports of Long Beach, Los Angeles and Oakland. California can’t improve goods movement without investing in private railroads. Moreover, since publicly owned passenger trains run on tracks owned by the private railroads, any bond-funded track improvements benefit the public as well as the private railroads.
Northern California would welcome the investment in rail that Southern California leaders spurn. Transportation planners in Sacramento and Placer counties, the Bay Area and the Central Valley have identified several rail projects that provide benefits for both private railroads and the public.
They want bond funds from Proposition 1B used to improve Union Pacific’s rail corridor over the Donner Summit. Targeted improvements to tunnels through the Sierra would allow double-stacked trains to traverse the summit, cutting a day off the Feather River Canyon route UP’s double-stacked freight trains use now.
Public investment in private railroads must include tangible benefits for the public. In the case of the Donner Summit investments, the governor and legislators must negotiate a deal that guarantees expanded passenger access to UP tracks in Placer County. UP now permits only one round trip a day for Capitol Corridor trains between Auburn and the Bay Area. Service should be increased to at least 10 round trips a day.
State bond money could also be used to realign tracks at Sacramento’s downtown train depot. Realignment would separate passenger from freight service, improving safety and smoothing operations for both. It would allow UP to move its freight through Sacramento much faster and at the same time create more convenience and safety for passengers.
Finally, between Sacramento and the Bay Area there are a number of grade separations, track upgrades and other operational improvements that would remove choke points along the route. These bottlenecks slow both freight and passenger trains and have hampered the Capitol Corridor intercity rail service.
The efficient movement of freight within our state is vital to California’s economic well-being. That’s why money in Proposition 1B was specifically targeted to trade corridors. The state’s rail infrastructure is as essential in moving goods as its highways. Because rail infrastructure, unlike highways, is privately owned, investments in rail can be more complicated and the public benefit harder to identify. But that doesn’t mean that public investments in rail should not be made. It means that the governor and legislators must work harder to identify the public interest and ensure that the public gets all it’s entitled to from its investment.