California’s new bullet train project has a lot going for it as a news story:  high technology, an impressive budget, and a signal role in America’s turn to better mass transit.  So: will it work?  And who’s going to pay for it all?  GIMBY reporter Marc Albert followed up with Quentin Kopp, Chairman of the California High Speed Rail Authority’s board of directors, and filed the following story:

If you don’t like the bullet train, you’re standing in the way of progress.  At least that’s the judgment of Quentin Kopp, chairman of the board of directors of the California High Speed Rail Authority. Kopp said in a recent interview that critics of the train are “probably descendants of the people who objected to the building of the Golden Gate Bridge and the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge during the Great Depression and also the Grand Coulee Dam and the TVA.”

Reaching back to Roosevelt is getting to be a reflex for public officials as the economic crisis worsens, and Kopp – while not exactly claiming that happy days are here again – seems quite confident about the bullet train’s future. He said construction would take eight years and that the Authority is committed to breaking ground in the second half of 2010.

According to the Kopp, officials project $6.5-$7.5 billion will emerge from private investors. The Authority has held discussions with potential partners and Kopp said five different firms that have already submitted letters of interest. A projected $1.1 billion in annual operating profits would repay investors.

The train project’s chairman also sounded confident about receiving $11-$16 billion in federal funding in the near term.  He mentioned "[House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi’s economic stimulus bill this month” and the likelihood of “a more expansive stimulus bill that I am confident that the Congress and the next President will enact." Kopp expects California’s Senator Dianne Feinstein or Rep. Jim Costa, both of California, to introduce legislation soon.

Kopp said building the system, including the extensions, would create between 150,000 and 250,000 construction jobs.

Critics have seized on ridership projections as dangerously optimistic. The Authority claims that by 2030, 55 million tickets will be sold annually – a number that is nearly twice the state’s population. Defending the figures, Kopp, citing news reports, said airlines are finding shrinking profit margins on short haul flights that may become entirely unprofitable.

Whatever the case, a market exists. There are an astounding number of scheduled flights linking the Los Angeles area’s five major airports with the Bay Area’s three. Add in medium distance commuters with the state’s fast growing population and congested highways and the ridership estimates seem less farfetched.

Kopp dismissed predictions of huge cost overruns. "It’s not going to happen with the High Speed Rail. We have more checks and balances already in place than on any public works project ever attempted in California.”  “We are on our way,” said Kopp.

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