1st Calif. high-speed rail segment to be in valley

(12-03) 04:00 PST Sacramento - -- California's dream of building a statewide high-speed rail system with trains zipping along at 220 mph will start to become reality with a 54-mile stretch of track deep in the Central Valley, the High-Speed Rail Authority board decided Thursday.

The board, facing a looming deadline to capture $3 billion in federal stimulus funding, voted unanimously to lay the first high-speed rails between Borden, south of Madera, through Fresno, to Corcoran, midway between Fresno and Bakersfield. Stations will be built in Fresno and in the Hanford area of Kings County.

But the $4.3 billion segment will not carry trains until it can become part of a larger system reaching toward the Bay Area or Los Angeles. The initial section will include tracks, trestles and elevated structures, but not the electrical system that powers the trains, nor the rail cars or maintenance facility.

Critics have lambasted the starting segment since it was recommended by the authority staff the day before Thanksgiving. Its location between two small towns has become a joke among opponents who have dubbed the project "the train to nowhere."

Others have argued that the first segment should link major cities in the valley. Merced officials argued that the rails should start in their city while Kern County officials said the lines should stretch south to Bakersfield.

But board members said the public should look at the initial section as a small starting point for an 800-mile system that will expand north and south as more money becomes available.

"We're in the business of connecting major metropolitan centers across our state, and we won't have a true high-speed rail system until we tie every part of this state together," said Tom Umberg, board vice chairman. "It's not one town or one region versus another; it's about connecting one region to another. "

Starting point

Umberg likened the $43 billion high-speed rail project to President Eisenhower's plan for the interstate highway system in the 1950s.

"It's a system that everyone uses today," he said. "That system started in Missouri."

California's dream of a high-speed rail system has existed since at least the 1970s, and while planners made limited progress toward defining how it could become reality, it didn't really generate momentum until voters passed a $10 billion bond in November 2008 to help fund the system's first phase from San Francisco to Southern California.

The project attracted the support of the federal government this year with the award of $2.25 billion in federal economic stimulus funds in January followed by $715 million more in October. Last month, the Federal Railroad Administration said it wanted all of that money, which must be spent on a project that's ready to build by 2011, to be used to build the first section of track somewhere in the Central Valley.

Going where support is

Rod Diridon, a board member from San Jose, said segments from San Francisco to San Jose and Los Angeles to Anaheim were passed over by federal officials because of persistent opposition in those areas.

"There was abject cooperation coming from Merced, Fresno and Bakersfield," he said. "That was the sole reason" for the federal mandate.

Authority engineers considered three basic routes for funding: Merced to Fresno, Fresno to Bakersfield and the segment they ended up recommending. Hans Van Winkle, the project manager, said federal requirements that the segment could connect to existing passenger rail lines if the high-speed project fails, the limited amount of funding, and the ability to extend tracks north and south made the Borden to Corcoran stretch preferable.

But board member Lynn Schenk said she feared that selecting the recommended route would subject the statewide project to further ridicule and make it difficult to obtain more federal funding and needed private investment.

"I'm concerned this staff recommendation makes engineering sense," she said, "but not common sense."

E-mail Michael Cabanatuan at mcabanatuan@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle