Van Ark said the companies have formed into five teams that the authority has qualified to compete for a contract on a stretch of the line through Fresno, from the San Joaquin River at the north end to American Avenue at the south end. The contract is expected to be worth $1.5 billion to $2 billion.

The builder teams are:

* California Backbone Builders, a consortium of two Spanish construction firms — Ferrovial Agroman and Acciona.

* California High-Speed Rail Partners, composed of Fluor Corp. of Texas, Swedish-based Skanska, and PCL Constructors of Canada.

* California High-Speed Ventures, made up of Kiewit Corp. of Nebraska, Granite Construction of Watsonville, and Comsa EMTE of Spain.

* A joint venture of Dragados SA of Spain, Denver-based Flatiron Construction Corp., and Shimmick Construction of Oakland.

* Tutor Perini Corp. of Sylmar, Zachry Construction of Texas and Pasadena-based Parsons Corp.

The project includes building 12 street overcrossings or underpasses, two elevated viaducts, a tunnel and a bridge across the San Joaquin River. Laying the tracks will be done later under a separate contract.

Some quick background on each…

California Backbone Builders (Ferrovial and Acciona): These are two Spanish companies with experience in building transportation infrastructure and other civil engineering projects. Ferrovial built the beautiful Terminal 4 building at Madrid’s Barajas airport, and Acciona built Lisboa’s landmark Gare do Oriente rail station in 1998. Together Ferrovial and Acciona have built portions of the Madrid-Barcelona AVE route and are currently working on the AVE extension north from Barcelona to the French border.

Ferrovial also operates several pieces of transportation infrastructure through its wholly owned subsidiary Cintra. Cintra is deeply involved in the proposed Trans-Texas Corridor and owns a number of toll roads, including the Chicago Skyway and the Indiana Toll Road (both of which were very highly controversial privatizations).

California High-Speed Rail Partners (Fluor, Skanska and PCL): These are three very big names in major civil engineering projects. Fluor used to be based in Orange County until a recent move to Texas, and one of their current major projects is building the new East Span of the Bay Bridge. They’re also working on Dutch high speed rail. Back in the ’90s they were part of the winning bid to build Florida high speed rail (which was sadly killed by Jeb Bush). Skanska is, among other things, working on the Alaskan Way Viaduct replacement project in Seattle, the Second Avenue Subway, and the PATH/World Trade Center station reconstruction project in NYC. They also built the Bothnia rail line in Sweden and were part of the huge Øresund Fixed Link project. PCL Construction has been working on the Central Corridor light rail project in the Twin Cities, and was interested in Florida’s HSR project in 2010 before another right-wing governor killed HSR there.

California High-Speed Ventures (Kiewit, Granite, Comsa): Kiewit has worked on many of the bridge retrofit projects in the San Francisco Bay as well as the T-Rex transportation project in Denver. Granite is a major construction player on the Central Coast, and led the project to trench the Union Pacific rail line through downtown Reno. Comsa has been involved in many pieces of AVE construction in Spain, including the original Madrid-Sevilla line and the route from Madrid to Galicia.

Dragados, Flatiron, Shimmick: Dragados S.A. was one of the two key partners in building LGV Perpignan-Figueres, connecting France and Spain. Dragados is also the lead contractor on the Seattle waterfront tunnel, which will include the largest tunnel boring machine ever used. Flatiron is working a lot of rail projects in California, including the Expo Line, the Oakland Airport Connector, and the Sprinter. Flatiron is also owned by Hochtief, which had some rather important building contracts in Nazi Germany, which should make things interesting given the recent issues related to California high speed rail, SNCF, and the Holocaust. Shimmick worked on the Golden Gate Bridge retrofit and a bunch of rail projects in California as well, including the new West Dublin/Pleasanton BART station, the Caltrain maintenance facility in San José, and part of BART’s Warm Springs extension. The members of this consortium may not be big names like some of the folks listed above but their experience with California rail projects is significant, making them a sleeper pick for the contract.

Tutor Perini, Zachry, Parsons: Tutor Perini is based in Sylmar and were the lead contractors on the BART to SFO project and the Alameda Corridor rail project. Parsons was also in on BART to SFO, is a “general engineering consultant” for Caltrain, and worked on the Channel Tunnel, Taiwan HSR, and the Northeast Corridor. The website indicates the consortium is Tutor Perini and Parsons, so I’m not quite sure where Zachry fits in. They’re based in Texas and have done a lot of highway projects there. They were also a partner with Cintra in the proposed Trans-Texas Corridor.

All five have an extensive background in major transportation projects, including rail. I think the first group, California Backbone Partners, is probably something of a longshot given their comparative lack of experience on California transportation projects. The others all have an extensive background, which also means they likely have their share of critics based on some of those projects.

There’s still a ways to go before a contractor is selected, and as some of these guys know, that doesn’t guarantee they’ll actually start building HSR. But if California avoids following the Tea Party down the path of opposing rail transportation projects, one of them should start building California HSR in Fresno this fall.

California has already won about $4 billion of that stimulus money, and combined with the voter-approved Prop 1A money will be enough to get construction started on the Initial Construction Segment in the Central Valley, connecting Fresno and Bakersfield.

That is, if the state legislature agrees to release the Prop 1A funds. That will be, by far, the top battle California high speed rail supporters will have to fight in 2012. A coalition of people who share an opposition to creating jobs and to doing anything that might move California away from its 20th century transportation model are working hard to ensure that the legislature overturns the will of the people and blocks this funding. Even some Democrats like State Senator Alan Lowenthal would have California follow the lead of right-wing extremists like Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, Ohio Governor John Kasich, and Florida Governor Rick Scott and reject billions in federal stimulus and the tens of thousands of jobs that go with it.

On the other hand, most California Democrats still support the project. That group is led by Governor Jerry Brown but it includes many other state legislators, as well as the once and future Speaker Nancy Pelosi, both our US Senators, and many Democratic constituency groups including the state labor federation. And of course, President Barack Obama remains a strong supporter of high speed rail. Would Democrats in the legislature really deal Obama a high-profile blow mere months before he is up for re-election? I have a very hard time imagining they would do that. (Including Sen. Lowenthal, who will be running for a seat in Congress this year.)

Still, HSR advocates will need to step up and work hard to provide public pressure and mobilize support for getting construction under way. Here are some of the key issues to push forward on as the year unfolds:

• HSR construction will provide a desperately needed jobs boost to the state. The Initial Construction Segment will create over 100,000 jobs during its five year construction timeline, a figured confirmed by the Mercury News’ recent analysis. That’s a big, big jolt to California and to the Central Valley in particular. Unemployment in California is still at a sky-high 11.7% rate, with Fresno County – the heart of the ICS – suffering from a shocking 15.7% unemployment rate. It is simply irresponsible for the legislature to reject this golden opportunity to provide a massive stimulus to the state’s economy. Any legislator who proposes to defund HSR needs to explain where they will find 100,000 jobs to replace those they would be destroying.

• HSR construction does not obligate the state to anything other than building an Initial Construction Segment. Some claim that California can’t afford the potentially $98 billion cost of high speed rail – even though such claims ignore the fact that California isn’t obligated to pay a dime more than the $10 billion voters approved back in 2008. Even if no more federal money materializes, then the state would have new rail infrastructure that other passenger rail systems can use.

• The ICS would have independent utility. Let’s just come right out and say it: Ralph Vartabedian is a liar for claiming in the LA Times that the concept of Amtrak using the ICS as a fallback option is a “sham”. Amtrak has indicated it likes the idea of using that track in concept, but details still have to be ironed out. In other words, if no more HSR money ever materialized, then California would still have created 100,000 new jobs and improved Amtrak California service in the meantime. Seems sensible to me.

• Support for HSR is strong in the San Joaquin Valley. Another criticism of Vartabedian’s article was its intellectually dishonest refusal to mention the numerous local governments that support the project after he mentioned that some local governments oppose it. Supporters include the city of Fresno and Fresno County, the city of Merced and Merced County, the city of Visalia and Tulare County. And there are a lot of HSR supporters in Hanford and Kings County who have been unfortunately shouted down. A lot of people in the Valley want this train and want these jobs.

• Californians embrace innovation and solve problems. Let’s remember the reason why Californians voted for high speed rail in the first place. A post from November 2011 lays out the case well, with plenty of citations and links.

The basic pitch: Like Boulder Dam, the California Aqueduct, and Interstate 5 before it, the high speed rail project is an essential element of getting out of this economic crisis and building lasting prosperity in California. Current infrastructure is not getting the job done, and expanding what we already have would cost significantly more than building HSR. By providing savings on transportation and environmental costs, the HSR project will spur billions in new economic activity that the state desperately needs. HSR has been a proven success everywhere else it has been tried and there is every reason to believe it will succeed here.

Despite what people like Alan Lowenthal, Doug LaMalfa, Elizabeth Alexis, and Gary Patton say, the legislature is still inclined to want to get HSR construction under way. And they will get a great deal of behind the scenes political pressure from higher ups to do so. But that isn’t sufficient. The public has to be mobilized too. And that’s the job of HSR advocates in 2012: to rally the public to push the legislature to get high speed rail under construction, as planned, this year.

Watching their neighbor’s increasingly warlike stance, Tulare County, which strongly supports the project, has been looking for a way to insure the fast growing population in the two county region — nearing 1 million by 2030 — has a station. So instead of partnering up with Kings County as had been planned, they have decided to go it alone.

The city of Visalia will take up the idea at its Dec. 21 council meeting, Olmos said. “Now that we know they will be building the first leg of the route right here, we understand that it has moved up our chances to get a station. We’ve been told that if we want a station we need to apply fairly quickly.”

With the clock ticking on funding, Visalia and TCAG will jointly apply to do a $800,000 planning study they note will serve a regional population that includes both Kings and Tulare counties, with Tulare’s population three times that of Kings.

Visalia understands that not being involved in the HSR project – and especially not having a station – means that job growth and new economic activity will quite literally pass them by:

Without a station, scores of daily 200 mph trains could barrel through Kings County, but none of them would stop — just what Visalia, and the bypassed towns of the earlier rail era — feared.

It’s good to see that Visalia and Tulare County get why HSR is such a good idea and are fighting to bring it to their community. As the gateway to Sequoia and Kings Canyon parks, Visalia is poised to get tourists from across the state more easily with high speed rail. And with a downtown that has affordable land available, located just over an hour via HSR from downtown LA, Visalia could attract businesses and skilled workers as other mid-line cities on European HSR lines have been able to do.

Hanford and Kings County may be willing to spend the rest of the 21st century watching Visalia and Tulare County take the jobs and business growth that they rejected. At least the rest of the San Joaquin Valley knows better.

The Authority studied potential routes for the Merced to Fresno Section, a corridor of approximately 65 miles, from 2001 to 2005. Based on this analysis, five alternative north-south alignment routes were identified in 2010. In August, that list was narrowed to three routes, which were included in the Authority’s draft EIR/EIS.

Based on community feedback and further analysis, the Authority identified the hybrid alternative route, which combines elements of the other two routes identified in the draft EIR/EIS. It is estimated that the Union Pacific Railroad / State Route 99 would have cost $1 billion more than the Hybrid Alternative and the BNSF route would have cost $500 million more.

In addition to representing a significant cost savings, the “hybrid alternative” also reflects input from communities along the route. If you went only by what the media chose to report you might think the Authority is a kind of Death Star determined to run roughshod over local communities. But here again we see that reality is different, showing that HSR planners are not only listening, they are responsive, and are doing so in a way that saves taxpayers money as well.

HSR critics don’t really want to discuss either of these points. But they matter. The state legislature and Congress ought to take note as well – the CHSRA is listening the public and is finding ways to build the project affordably. That’s exactly what we need in 21st century infrastructure projects, and both the legislature and Congress should help encourage this by providing more funding to help expand the project’s construction segment, rather than fight it in the vain hopes of prolonging a failed 20th century model of transportation.

The Hybrid Alternative generally parallels the Union Pacific Railroad and State Route 99 between Merced and Fresno. To avoid impacts to downtown Madera, this route travels east to be adjacent to the Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) corridor. The station locations proposed along this route include downtown Merced between Martin Luther King Jr. Way and G Street and downtown Fresno at Mariposa Street.

“Not only does this route have the fewest overall impacts but the hybrid route is financially sensible, saving hundreds of millions compared to the other two routes,” said Leavitt.

It is estimated that the Union Pacific Railroad / State Route 99 would have cost $1 billion more than the Hybrid Alternative and the BNSF route would have cost $500 million more.

And Valley leaders are supportive of the choice:

“We are looking forward to being the birthplace of California’s high-speed train system,” said Fresno Mayor Ashley Swearengin. “We are ready to put people to work building a system and a station that will connect Fresno to all of the other major cities in California. This project has the potential to transform and improve California’s future.”

“We are thrilled that we’re one step closer to seeing a high-speed train station in downtown Merced,” remarked Dr. Lee Boese, Jr., Co-Chair of the Greater Merced High-Speed Rail Committee. “This project will enhance the lives of residents in Merced and surrounding areas, as well as provide long-term economic growth for our business community. I agree with the Hybrid route recommendation, it will avoid impacts to the small towns of Planada and Le Grand. While we know that the high-speed train will serve as a powerful economic stimulator for our State, we want to continue to work closely with the Authority to design a system that will minimize negative impacts to existing businesses and agriculture. This is truly an exciting step forward.”

While some issues, like the details of the wye, are still unresolved this is a good step forward for project planning. The hybrid alternative was an example of innovative and sensible design choices, showing a willingness to find creative solutions that reduce impacts and save money in the process.

High speed rail has the potential to transform the San Joaquin Valley from a region dependent on agriculture alone to a diverse and prosperous place with a wide range of jobs, tied into the global economy by having a fast and affordable connection to the all-important coastal economic engines.

Others are beginning to make the same point. As Fresno Bee columnist Bill McEwen explains, the Valley has to be willing to take some risks if it is to have any hope of escaping what is an economic depression:

“I see a huge future for high-speed rail. It’s great that the first link that’s going to get built in California is between Fresno and Bakersfield,” says [Mary] O’Hara-Devereaux, keynote speaker at today’s Fresno County Economic Development Corp. annual report luncheon.

Why then is high-speed rail so divisive that polite folks don’t discuss it around the dinner table?

“There is always a lot of controversy around transportation shifts,” O’Hara-Devereaux says.

O’Hara-Devereaux, founder and chief executive officer of San Francisco-based Global Foresight, says that she’s aware of the Valley’s steep economic challenges. But she is of the opinion that the region can prosper by diversifying its economy, continuing to be a world leader in agriculture and forming partnerships with top academic institutions.

“The San Joaquin Valley has struggled and lagged behind other areas in California,” O’Hara-Devereaux says. “But I’m not pessimistic about the future. A lot of it depends on not getting lost in familiar territory and stuck in mindsets.

And that’s exactly where HSR opponents and critics are – lost in familiar territory and stuck in a 20th century mindset where people will only ever want to drive.

We’ve seen around the world that HSR provides a boon to mid-line cities who are suddenly able to attract talent and capital from the major metros that become just an hour’s train ride away. Fresno and Bakersfield are poised to become the next Ciudad Real or Zaragoza. The freeway turned San José from an orchard town to the center of a global industry. HSR can turn Fresno into an important part of the 21st century economy.

After all, HSR allows the global economy to tap into the resources the Valley currently has:

O’Hara-Devereaux’s crystal ball also includes this possibility: a shift in overseas manufacturing jobs to the low-cost Valley.

“There’s a play in strategically thinking about how you bring more manufacturing,”she says. “It has to be done in a comprehensive manner, so you’re also making the investments in education and training. Almost all manufacturing is going to be more high-tech, so you’re going to need more skills.”

The Valley is low-cost, but it’s also geographically isolated. In the ’00s boom that isolation was temporarily overcome when the Bay Area began spilling over into San Joaquin County, but the end of cheap gas stopped that and turned Stockton into one of the most depressed housing markets in the country. But that boom did prove the concept – if the Valley can be linked to the coast with the right kind of transportation, capital, jobs, and people will flock to the Valley.

It’s hard to imagine how anyone in the Valley would want to turn down that opportunity. Because HSR spurs growth within existing urban areas due to the desire to have proximity to a station, it won’t threaten most farmers. And because it will create construction jobs as well as bring jobs to the Valley and put current residents in the market for coastal jobs, it will be as beneficial to the local economy as were the canals and aqueducts of the New Deal era.

The opportunity and the rewards are too great to let a few kinks in the project hold the Valley back from what may be its best chance at escaping long-term economic malaise.

On May 10, 2011 the Legislative Analyst’s Office released an analysis of California’s High Speed Rail project. Perhaps the signature recommendation by former analyst Eric Thronson was to suggest that the Authority negotiate with the Federal Railroad Administration on the recipients of high speed rail construction grants. The LAO suggested that the Authority should ask the federal government to remove requirements that its awards only be spent in the Central Valley. The matter soon became irrelevant, with Washington categorically refusing to do so. As a result, any merit behind Thronson’s idea was ignored, and seemingly forgotten.

And that’s exactly the problem.

Less than a month earlier, the Department of Transportation had announced California would receive $100 million funding with a $25 million state match for new locomotives and “next generation, American-built railcars”. The State of Washington meanwhile was awarded through the Recovery Act $70 million dollars for eight locomotives and one new trainset. Thronson had the right idea, just the wrong program.

What staffers should have done is recommend the Legislature seek flexibility over the expenditures for Amtrak California’s rolling stock, not high speed rail.

The grant’s other recipient, Washington State, has sponsored passenger rail service for its residents since 1994. As it had no rolling stock of its own, Washington leased a Talgo trainset manufactured for the European market. As ridership increased, the state decided to order custom-built Talgo units in 1999. Today Washington owns five articulated Talgo trainsets used exclusively for its Amtrak Cascades service.

According to their state department of transportation, a Cascade train is usually comprised of two business class cars, six coach ones, and a both lounge and café cars. Baggage is stored at either end, with another locomotive hauling the weight of the train. The capacity of the each set is 250 people. Further, the Talgo articulated design allows the cars to tilt through curves, conserving precious inertia and making for a faster trip than would otherwise be possible. The cost of each set is reportedly around $30 million each.

The State of California, by contrast, uses modified Amtrak Superliner cars for all of its routes, including the San Joaquin, Pacific Surfliner, and Capitol Corridor. This is because a single Superliner can seat almost a hundred people, and the daily ridership of the Surfliner, for example, is about 3 times that of the Cascades.

The San Joaquin, however, and the Cascades are similar in that there are total of six trains each way equaling a daily ridership of around 2,500. The Cascades takes around six and a half hours to travel the 310 miles from Seattle to Eugene, Oregon.  The San Joaquin meanwhile, needs just over six hours to go from 315 miles from Bakersfield to Oakland.

As I mentioned in the previous post, a proposed Bakersfield to San Jose initial operating segment meanwhile, could take as little as five and a half hours. That time includes however, a significant stretch through the Altamont pass where a train is unlike to reach high speed. The Altamont Corridor Express, a commuter service, takes nearly two hours to snake its way from San Jose to Stockton, even though the route is less than ninety miles one way.

Now it’s true that there are numerous intermediate stops on the ACE, and by appending all but one (Livermore) the Bakersfield-San Jose San Joaquin would recover some time. But would it be enough to generate the revenue that California High Speed Rail needs to fund additional construction in the Pacheco Pass and south to Los Angeles?

Using the existing rolling stock, perhaps not.

California and Washington’s locomotives are for the most part interchangeable and capable of 110mph top speeds. The advantage of the Talgos is that the articulated nature helps them absorb curves at a high speed. That doesn’t make much of a difference on flat right of ways in the Central Valley naturally. But it would have an impact in regards to travel times through the Altamont Pass. Faster travel times, as you might imagine, tend to create higher revenues.

Given that the cost of each trainset at around $30 million each, it’s pretty clear that Amtrak California can’t afford to simply dig up another $200 million or so from the Public Transportation Account. And there’s no certainty that the Authority could provide Cal Trans with Prop 1A money for that purpose.

Moreover, the use of Talgo trainsets for the initial operating segments isn’t just about speed. It’s also about preparing California’s travelling public for what true HSR travel will be like, with better amenities and more technology than most Amtrak trains currently provide. This includes innovations such as seat-back television screens, moveable headrests, and at-your-seat one-touch ordering for alcohol and food. These additions are important not just because they may make the train seem more desirable, but because each is an avenue to explore potential new revenue streams.

There’s also something to be for the psychology of rolling out new products and services in more isolated markets. Riders on the Pacific Surfliner and Capitol Corridor will hear about the new services long before they get to try them. That will create a “buzz” that encourages passengers “to see it for themselves” and boost demand. Some will inevitable discover the inherent value of the San Joaquin and elect to return. The others, however, will tell their friends about what they experienced and how they felt. This is precisely the type of momentum that high speed rail currently lacks.

This is to say nothing of the political benefits. New trainsets provide an opportunity for the Authority and Governor to experiment with existing routes while giving the Legislature the ability to claim credit for the decision. The feds meanwhile, would get the opportunity to look open-minded and compromising, while preserving their commitment to HSR.

Nevertheless, a souped-up San Joaquins would only provide a glimpse of the Initial Operating Segment’s total potential. Such a snapshot, however, would give private investors able to invest in completing the San Jose to Fresno HSR something to work with. In the next two installments, we will focus on just that: two separate companies that would both make strong candidates in that regard.

Talked to farmer who lost farm because of Freeway 180 extension. No squawks from farm community cause opposition to HSR is political.

Boren is likely referring to the SR 180 East freeway extension projects, funded by Fresno County’s Measure C 1/2 cent sales tax. The 180 freeway is being extended in both directions, east and west, from Fresno and some of this work involves taking farmland. Similar freeway projects have impacted Valley farmland for decades, including the construction of Interstate 5 itself on what was largely a brand new alignment on the west side of the Valley.

None of these projects generated the kind of vehement opposition that high speed rail has. Boren’s suggestion is that the opposition is “political.”

A 140-character tweet doesn’t reveal a lot, and so I hope Boren will elaborate on his conversation and his insights in more depth. But we can look at what we already know and draw some conclusions.

We know that HSR is strongly opposed by Valley Republicans in Congress, despite the fact that the project would bring thousands of jobs to one of the parts of California with the worst unemployment. Jeff Denham, Devin Nunes and Kevin McCarthy are ideologically opposed to HSR, but they are also opposed to President Barack Obama. Anything that helps Obama promote his agenda is something those Congressmen will oppose. That’s especially true of anything that undermines the oil companies, including the Koch brothers who play such an important role in underwriting right-wing politics in this country.

Many farmers are also right-wing political activists. The Kings County Farm Bureau strongly backs Valley Republican candidates. At a recent EIR hearing in Hanford, project opponents literally gathered under a Tea Party banner.

There are also deeper issues. Like their Peninsula NIMBY counterparts, Valley HSR opponents do not want to give anyone else an opportunity to enjoy prosperity, believing that to do so would necessarily come at the expense of some of the prosperity they already have. And both groups refuse to accept the evidence that intercity passenger rail is already popular with Californians, that they are likely to ride high speed rail, and that HSR is globally successful.

Not sure which of those Boren was referring to, or maybe to something else entirely. But it’s worth keeping in mind that as usual, passenger rail is held to standards that freeways aren’t.

So begins Day 14 of an amazing journey. Three young men from Hanford – Travis and Adam Souza and Nate Yockey – have been walking the length of the California high speed rail route every day since they left Los Angeles on August 29. Their website is We Make the Road by Walking and it is, as far as I am concerned, the best thing produced so far about the California high speed rail project. That includes this blog.

Here’s how they introduce their project:

From the 29th of August two of my brothers and I will be walking the entirety of the proposed California High Speed Rail route from Los Angeles, finishing in San Francisco on the 30th of September. At ground level and walking pace we will, in a way, be drawing a line across California where a variety of people, places and practices converge. We will be documenting and accumulating materials from this engagement. Since the route connects California’s largest cities through most of its agricultural and rural places the rail’s imminent construction has generated much discussion revealing the complex interconnectedness of geography, work, leisure, economics, farming, food, ecology, sustainability, urban and rural culture, and more besides. We will be spending much of our time speaking to farmers who will be affected, asking them for their hospitality in letting us camp on their land for the night. Also, many of these issues will be addressed in public discussions and by a few others who will walk parts of our journey with us in a discourse shaped by our immediate environments/landscapes/locale.

This is exactly the kind of thing that California needs as we work out the important details of how to build high speed rail. I had entertained the idea of making a much briefer trip along the route, via train and bus, in early 2009. But work obligations got in the way and ultimately I invested my time into building this blog. I spend a lot of time focused on the politics, the policies, and the media narratives around HSR, but someone needed to go out and see what was being said out there in the cities and towns along the route. These three men have done that, and it’s a must-watch.

The Hanford Sentinel has an excellent feature on the three walkers:

All born in Hanford, Travis and Adam grew up in Reedley, while Nate was raised in Corcoran and Fresno.

Their family still owns 80 acres of farmland on Fargo Avenue between 7 1/2 and 8 1/2 avenues that their great-great grandmother, who came from the Azores, started farming about 100 years ago. The land is currently leased out.

“I have a connection to this place,” Travis said. “But my wife and I live in the city, and I enjoy it there. So I was torn between two different ways of life. I thought it was fitting with the high-speed rail project between two cities and the communities in between.”…

Their mother said she was relieved to see her sons safe as well as proud of their undertaking.

“I’m proud of them because it’s important,” said Veiga-Yockey, a fourth-grade teacher at Kings River School in Kingsburg who grew up in Hanford and now lives in Reedley. “Their motive is to give a voice to those who are going to be affected by the high-speed rail.”

She says the 80 acres of farmland is a family legacy, and she wants it kept intact for the future generations.

“Many of the people and I are not necessarily against high speed rail, but we feel the (California High-Speed Rail) Authority has not really listened to the people,” she said. “Let’s do this right. It’s pretty hard to give up and sacrifice your life and land when you don’t feel like you’re listened to. And that’s what I see.”

Now I would obviously quibble with that last part – the Authority is listening to everyone, but in particular the majority of Californians who voted for the project. It’s their voice that comes first. Still, we who support high speed rail are not at all indifferent to the thoughts, ideas and concerns being voiced in places like Kings County.

By bringing the voices and sights of the route that will become California high speed rail, these three are doing Californians and HSR supporters a big service. We need to see, and we need to hear, what they are showing us.

Once they arrive in San Francisco next week, they’ll make a public presentation of their tour. It’ll be at Timken Lecture Hall on the campus of California College of the Arts, Friday, September 30, 2011, 7:00–9:00 pm. If you’re in the Bay Area, it will be worth attending.

Even if state officials can scrape together the billions of dollars needed to fund California’s ambitious high-speed rail plans, lawsuits from local cities and opposition groups still could delay, divert or derail the project altogether….

In Kings County, lawyers already are preparing legal objections to a recently released draft environmental study. Local officials and residents say that if their complaints fall on deaf ears during the legally mandated public comment period, they are ready for a fight.

“Some higher authority needs to put a stop to this,” said Diana Peck, director of the Kings County Farm Bureau. “If we’ve gone through every single channel up the chain, then, of course, it’s going to end up in court.”

The crux of the battle is whether the route would follow the existing BNSF railroad corridor, or whether it would follow Highway 99. The 99 alignment would be significantly more expensive, as it would require overpasses to be rebuilt. And it too would require purchase of farmland for right of way.

The difference is that Highway 99 does not enter Kings County. (It comes really, really close just south of Kingsburg.) Kings County farmers are basically saying that Tulare County farmers should have to deal with it, that somehow 99 is a more legitimate “existing corridor” than the BNSF corridor:

Theo de Haan, who sits on the local farm bureau’s board, said much of the anger in Kings County stems from the perception that residents were tricked. “It was sold on the premise that they would follow existing corridors,” de Haan said, referring to the ballot language in voter-approved Proposition 1A.

Like many residents, de Haan assumed that “existing corridor” would be Highway 99. Then he found out the rail authority was planning an alignment that would snake through a mile of his dairy farm, take out the house his nephew lives in while managing the farm and then run through his son’s home in a nearby subdivision.

You don’t get to feel “tricked” if it’s your own fault that you weren’t paying attention and instead chose to believe whatever was convenient for you. It makes sense that a railroad would follow another railroad, especially when doing so is much more affordable for the taxpayers of California than going along Highway 99. And while some Kings County farmers may not wish to admit this, the California High Speed Rail Authority’s responsibility is not to the farmers, but to the people of the state as a whole.

Kings County’s strategy is clearly one of trying to drive up the cost of the HSR project. Yet they have not explained to the rest of the state why exactly it is that we should have to pay more in order to make them happy.

Of course, by going to court they never have to answer that question. The CEQA process helps produce such expensive outcomes because it privileges those who prefer to push costs onto someone else, even at the long-term expense of their own county. If the 99 corridor is eventually used, the station will go to Visalia and Hanford will be bypassed. Tulare County will reap the financial rewards, with Kings County getting a far smaller boost.

In any case, there seems little point in arguing with the Kings County Farm Bureau. Their determination to sue to get their way has been clear for some time. If they wish to go to court, that is their right. But it’s also the right of the rest of California to ask what the cost will be, and whether it is worth paying.