We will know the California high speed rail project is in trouble when its longtime supporters start turning against it. And we will also know the project is in good shape when those same supporters rally to its defense.

Over the last few days, we have seen several editorials and op-eds from longtime HSR backers that acknowledge some of the areas where the California High Speed Rail Authority needs to improve – but also mount a good defense of the project and its value for California. While there’s been a lot of criticism leveled at the project in the two years since Prop 1A passed, most of it comes from either known project opponents, or from NIMBYs whose support for the project, always tenuous, takes a back seat to their backward-looking values.

Let’s start with a great column from Lois Henry in today’s Bakersfield Californian titled “High speed rail is on the right track”:

California’s high speed rail ambitions are fraught with difficulties.

It will be expensive. Wildly so.

Lawsuits have already begun over proposed routes.

Ridership estimates are too high. Cost estimates may be too low.

Some have lost confidence in the High Speed Rail Authority’s ability to pull it off.

Political support is teetering at the state and federal level.

(Did I mention the spendy part?)

And we would be absolute fools to walk away from it now.

Now, I don’t quite agree with everything Henry wrote here. State and federal leaders remain committed to the project, especially Governor-elect Jerry Brown, as well as incoming House Transportation Committee Chair John Mica, a Florida Republican. As I told her in a conversation we had late last week as she was writing this column, there is every reason to believe the ridership estimates are close to the mark – we have a clear global record of high passenger rail ridership, including on the Acela back east. While the specific ridership numbers matter for whatever business model the CHSRA ultimately adopts, there is no doubt at all that ridership will be significant. To doubt it, one has to deny global warming, deny rising oil prices, deny proven public demand for fast rail service around the world, and deny the great shift away from driving.

Still, I came here to praise Lois Henry, and she’s not the one making these criticisms. She clearly understands the need for HSR, explaining that:

The 2009 California Transportation Commission report to the Legislature shows that maintaining existing pavement on California’s highways will cost $6 billion a year over the next 10 years. (That’s more, by the way, than the estimated cost of the entire high speed rail project — $43 billion.)

And we don’t have $6 billion a year. We have less than $2 billion a year for maintenance, according to the report. That’s not even looking at freeway expansion.

That’s a pretty significant stat. We are going to spend more than the cost of building HSR just to maintain what we have – and that’s before looking at the cost of freeway expansion, which has been put at $25 billion to widen just Highway 99 alone.

To be clear, Lois Henry isn’t saying all is well. She acknowledges, as did the authors of the Peer Review report, as has this blog, that the Authority needs to make improvements, especially with staffing and outreach. But Henry, like Will Kempton (OCTA CEO and lead author of the Peer Review report) and myself, see these as understandable growing pains on the part of an agency that was badly understaffed for most of its life, until the twin avalanche of Prop 1A’s passage and nearly $4 billion in federal funding. Here’s how Henry puts it:

That uncertainty lit a fire under long time critics who’ve ramped up opposition and it created new skeptics among recession weary taxpayers fearful of a government boondoggle.

To which I say, excellent!

Question, accuse, criticize, demand answers, hold their feet to the fire — get involved.

Of course, many of the project critics are not disinterested people who just want the best project. Some, like Alain Enthoven or Morris Brown, are merely driven by concerns for their own property values. Others, like several Congressional Republicans, simply don’t believe in high speed rail at all because it goes against their ideology of a nation where driving in a car is the only way to get around.

Still, Henry is coming at this from a position of strength – she believes the project is strong enough to where this criticism and oversight will only help matters. I hope it turns out that way. However, I would also argue that HSR supporters need to do more to demonstrate their support, as well as help navigate these turbulent waters, by letting the Legislature know they need to fund more hiring at the Authority, and by letting Congress and the White House know we want more, not less, HSR funding.

If we lost the support of someone like Lois Henry – who told me she’d been supporting this for nearly 20 years – I would be concerned. Instead, she wants the project to keep moving forward. She was joined late last week by the editorial pages of the two leading newspapers in the state. First up, the Los Angeles Times editorial from Saturday, commenting on California receiving another $624 million in federal HSR funding:

But that’s perfectly OK with us, because California can use the money. Our state’s future high-speed rail line from San Diego to San Francisco and Sacramento is already hitting snags, and we expect many more before the system is complete. The $624 million from Wisconsin and Ohio, combined with the $3 billion in federal funds the state has already received, will help smooth the way. Thanks a billion, cheeseheads.

Notice the LA Times’ attitude here. Sure, the project is “hitting snags” but that’s to be expected with a big project, so let’s keep moving forward. Again, I would disagree that it is “hitting snags” – most of those “snags” are overblown or misstated (like the ridership issues) or are simply lies (like the “train to nowhere” bullshit). Still, if we lost the LA Times I’d be pretty worried. Instead they’re solidly on board with the project.

So too is the San Francisco Chronicle. Their editorial from last Wednesday notes “obstacles on the tracks” but calls for the project to move forward:

But it’s worth remembering how we got here. A growing state is clogged with airport and freeway traffic. Any hope of curbing smog and controlling climate change rests on getting people out of cars and airplanes and onto transit, such as super trains shooting between 26 stations aligned in California’s core. Jobs, construction work and development add to the appeal of high-speed rail….

Running the first rails through farmville may sound pointless. But it loops in Fresno, the region’s biggest population center, and in a pinch can be used by Amtrak, which can operate its trains at higher speeds. There’s also a bigger message: High-speed rail is getting under way….

So many challenges, nearly all at once, can immobilize policymakers worried about making fateful choices. But in this case, the goal should be clear: California wants high-speed rail, and it’s time to get rolling.

While I wish the Chronicle, Times, and Lois Henry didn’t give quite so much credence to some of the criticisms made against the project, what matters is that all three believe the project should go forward anyway. That’s a sign of a resilient project, and of public support that is both broad and deep.

Of course, everyone has their breaking point. If the project were to become embroiled in a serious scandal, or have severe construction problems, or massive cost overruns (as opposed to a few increases here and there), then I would expect some of these supporters to turn. I am well aware I’ll be one of the die-hards, supporting this project no matter what happens – but that’s because I realize that California simply cannot prosper without sustainable infrastructure like this. I feel similarly about solar and wind power, but I can only run one blog and chair one organization at a time.

There is one thing I mentioned to Lois Henry that I want to repeat here – it made it into her column in a way, but I should elaborate anyway. One of the issues here is that the federal stimulus has altered the usual timeline for the project. Before final decisions had been made about precisely where the tracks will go and what the tracks will look like (especially their vertical alignment), the CHSRA had to apply for up to $8 billion in federal stimulus. As it turned out, the CHSRA had no room for error and could not have passed the opportunity up; it may be a few more years before another similarly large amount of federal HSR money comes available.

The Authority could not wait, could not tell the FRA “sorry, we haven’t determined yet how the Chowchilla Wye will look, or which segment we want to build first.” They had to apply with what they knew. And because the project is still undergoing design, the plans could – and have – changed from year to year, sometimes from month to month, even week to week. That happens when you’re in the middle of the planning and design process, it’s normal and typical.

Unfortunately, we have a news media in this country that was trained over the last 40 years to believe that any time government says one thing and does another, it’s a sign of scandal, of a hopelessly flawed project. That’s a ridiculous way to approach journalism, but that’s what we’re stuck with, at least until more media conglomerates go bankrupt. And despite that, we’ve got three members of the California press corps who still see the value of HSR, who refuse to believe that a few growing pains are reason to pull the plug on the most important infrastructure project in this state in the last 50 years.

That’s the sign of a strong project, of deep public support. The HSR critics and deniers can talk all they want to about getting the Legislature to “pull the plug” or getting Prop 1A repealed at the ballot box – but neither one is going to happen. As I’ve been saying for nearly three years now, Californians want bullet trains. And soon, we will finally get them.