news story / By North Coast Journal Staff

Mad Props

(Oct. 9, 2008) Prop 1A: Not Our Train

The “Safe, Reliable High-Speed Passenger Train Bond Act” aims to throw a whole lot of money at the California railroad system. The legislature, which put this measure on the ballot, is asking voters to approve almost $10 billion in new state bonds, 90 percent of which would be spent building a new high-speed passenger train from the Bay Area to San Diego through the Central Valley. Most of the remainder — about $950 million — would go toward building or improving other rail projects around the state.

Any chance that some of that could flow our way? Unfortunately, no. The $950 million is earmarked specifically for passenger lines that connect directly to the new high-speed rail network, and our own Northwestern Pacific Line is anything but that. In the first place, the railroad has been off-line for 10 years, and though there are plans to restore it, passenger service to Humboldt County is definitely off the table for the foreseeable future. There’s another agency — Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit, or SMART — that want to institute passenger service on the south end of the line, but there’s no way for SMART’s train to directly link into the high-speed mainline. That means that Prop 1A funds are out of the question, SMART spokesperson Chris Coursey told the Journallast week.

So the issues, to Humboldt County residents, are probably only the generic ones. On the downside: for the bonds, about $525 total cost (principal and interest) to each California resident — man, woman and child. Potentially greater costs to actually complete construction of the high-speed rail system, and possibly to subsidize its operation. The plus side, according to backers? San Francisco to Los Angeles in two hours and forty minutes for $55, and a 324 pound decrease in carbon dioxide emissions per passenger.

— Hank Sims

Prop. 3: Children’s Hospital

At a little under $1 billion, the “Children’s Hospital Bond Act” is just a tenth of the size of the proposed high-speed train bond issue. But it’s directed to an infrastructure issue far more tangible to most Californians: the system of children’s hospitals, one of the crown jewels of the state. The initiative is intended to fund the “construction, expansion, remodeling, renovation, furnishing and equipping” of the hospitals. Twenty percent would go to acute care institutions associated with the University of California — such as the UCSF and UC Davis Children’s Hospitals, familiar to many on the North Coast. The remaining 80 percent would go private facilities, such as Stanford University’s children’s hospital, that focus on serious, life-threatening illnesses.

The opposition? Fiscal conservatives worried about the massive state budget deficit, and who fear the possibility of the state completely collapsing under the load. Also, they manage to sneak in some scary language about the hospitals catering to the kids of “illegal aliens.” But the antis do raise another interesting point: Isn’t this exactly the same bond we passed four years ago, back when it was called Prop. 61? Isn’t it true that the funds raised in that bond issue haven’t even been fully distributed yet? The answers: yes and yes. But proponents say that the 2004 money has all been allocated (though not yet spent) and construction costs have since gone through the roof.

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