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The California High-Speed Rail Project, linking Sacramento-San Diego, will raise the incomes of southern California workers by $701 million and create 127,000 new permanent jobs to southern California by 2035, said a report by the Center for Urban Infrastructure.
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The report titled "Thinking Ahead: High-Speed Rail in Southern California" has focused on high-speed rail's environmental impact in terms of reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (AB 32), and the coordination of regional land use and transportation planning, said a statement.
"Just as the Interstate Highway System transformed the way Americans lived and where they worked in the 1950's, high-speed rail has the same transformative potential today," said Sarah L. Catz, author of the report and director of Center for Urban Infrastructure.
It will provide over 57,000 full-time, one-year jobs (or multi-year employment for approximately 15,200 workers) while the construction of the Anaheim Regional Intermodal Transportation Center (ARTIC) will create an additional 3,500 to 5,000 jobs in Orange County based upon estimated project costs of $179 million, it said.
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By providing an alternative to automobiles, high-speed rail will be a major catalyst for expansion of southern California's emerging "green" economy, the report said.
It estimates reductions in emissions of nearly half a billion pounds of CO2 annually by 2035, besides encouraging a healthy lifestyle as it would require commuters to walk or bike for a portion of their trip, giving them the daily needed exercise. In terms of health savings, this "would total between $50 million and $132 million in reduced medical costs over a fifteen-year period (2020-2035, discounted in 2010 dollars at 4 percent), depending on the ridership scenario," said the report.
Further, the report pondered on strategies needed to make cities in the region benefit from the $2.34 billion investment made in California from Federal stimulus funds, streamlining zoning and land use codes suitable for intensified development.
The large amounts of new parking required at HSR and existing commuter rail stations in Southern California, estimated at over 14,000 spaces under conventional traffic modeling could be partially reduced with low-cost connectivity concepts, the report suggested.
Some of the funds that would otherwise go toward the construction of parking facilities, estimated to cost as much as $565 million for Phase I ($40,000 per space), could be diverted to support these alternative mobility networks, noted the report. This will allow cities to cluster their housing, retail and office space in ridership and station area developments.
The majority of federal funds granted to the state will be spent in southern California for construction of a high-speed rail line from Bakersfield to Fresno.
The study, presented to a conference on "The Light at the End of the Tunnel: Planning for High-Speed Rail in Orange County and Southern California" held at Brandman University in Irvine on Thursday, was attended by over 100 government, business and civic leaders from Orange County and Southern California, said the statement.
Compared to other developed countries like France, Spain and Japan, the U.S. is still lagging in high-speed rail system. Even emerging economies like India, China and Brazil, besides Morocco are on the road to build high-speed rail network.
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