Palmdale could become stop along the way

On July 21, Palmdale city officials sat quietly in a board room within the magnificent San Francisco City Hall, where ancient Greek figures carved in smooth white granite look down on visitors passing through the great halls and massive pillars.

In the board room, the economic fate of Palmdale and the surrounding Antelope Valley region of nearly a half-million people was in the hands of a nine-member panel rapidly moving a decision-making process to its close.

The question:

Should Palmdale be a stop on the state's planned high-speed rail system? Routing a high-speed train through the high desert, according to one study, would generate up to $500 million in revenue for the area. It would also get commuters from Palmdale to Los Angeles in 30 minutes or less.

The dilemma:

Such a route requires 38 more miles of costly track and land acquisition, possibly increasing the cost of the $23 to $30 billion project. And, if Palmdale were given a stop, all passengers traveling on the system would be delayed nine to 15 minutes, according to some estimates.

The recommendation on the table was to circumvent the high desert, where a majority of the population growth in Southern California is expected to occur in the next 10 to 20 years - when a highspeed rail system, if approved, would likely be up and running.

That recommendation was made by staff of the California High-Speed Rail Authority, a board of volunteers charged with forming a business plan for a rapid ground transit system from San Francisco to Los Angeles.

Instead, the staff suggested a straighter route from Bakersfield to L.A., paralleling Interstate 5.

The weight of that recommendation sunk the hopes of Valley officials who worked hard for the past six years to establish Palmdale as the preferred stop route along what may become a 670-mile high-speed rail system capable of speeding travelers along in excess of 200 mph.

Lobbying efforts were in full force.

Palmdale Mayor Jim Ledford made repeated appearances before the authority. David Myers, a Palmdale city councilman, worked feverishly to debunk the authority staff's recommendation.

Guest speakers had been invited. Los Angeles City Councilwoman Ruth Galanter was making her second appearance before the authority to let it be known that she and the entire city council, including L.A. Mayor Richard Riordan, were in favor of making Palmdale a high-speed rail stop.

Galanter spoke vigorously and authoritatively, citing the need to develop Palmdale Airport as a reason to have a high-speed rail alignment through the Valley.

"I just cannot understand how we cannot include the Antelope Valley . . . as part of the statewide system," she said. "Palmdale Airport is a vastly underdeveloped and underserved resource."

Representatives for Los Angeles County 5th District Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich delivered a letter from all five supervisors announcing their support of a route through the high desert.

Officials from the Department of Los Angeles World Airports also hand-delivered a letter of support. They spoke with urgency about the need for a high-speed ground link between Palmdale and L.A. to make Palmdale Airport viable and ease air traffic at the overburdened Los Angeles International Airport.

This last endorsement was surprising, because the airline industry views high-speed rail as a competitor and has traditionally lobbied hard against such rapid ground transit systems.

Southern California Association of Governments, an organization comprised of elected representatives throughout the region, also endorsed a high-speed rail alignment through the Valley.

Facts and figures blurred, as authority members grappled with a vote they'd already delayed twice.

The first time they were scheduled to vote on a rail alignment was in June, during a meeting at the Metropolitan Water District building in downtown L.A.

It was during that meeting the staff first endorsed a route paralleling I-5, passing over the Grapevine, over an alignment through the Valley.

After officials from Palmdale and Lancaster, and Galanter, urged authority members to consider their views, the vote was delayed for a month to allow more public comment.

More public comment is what they got.

During the first day of the two-day meeting in San Francisco, authority members listened to about four hours of public comment - much of which was delivered from proponents of an alignment through Palmdale.

Other speakers urged alignments through their areas. Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown, who was California's governor until 1982, questioned the staff's reasoning for leaving his city out of a statewide high-speed rail plan.

Finally, it was time to take a vote on whether to adopt the staff's recommendation, or go through the arduous process of redrawing the map.

Authority member Jerry Epstein, formerly a member of the Los Angeles World Airports and an outspoken supporter of the development of Palmdale Airport, motioned to have Palmdale included in the alignment options.

This point was quickly agreed upon by authority chair Michael Tennenbaum and Mehdi Morshed, the authority's executive director and head of authority staff.

Until Epstein's motion, Tennenbaum had been unreceptive to the idea of a high desert alignment, and Morshed had been outright opposed to it.

Morshed was a member of the High-Speed Rail Commission, the predecessor group to the authority. The commission was merely a start-up committee, charged with getting rail plans under way.

While that commission narrowly voted to recommend having a high-speed stop in Palmdale, Morshed cast one of the dissenting votes.

With Epstein's motion, it appeared Palmdale was in the clear.

All possible alignments would be considered.

But, what wasn't readily clear to all those in the board room was that the staff's proposed alignment would still be the only recommendation carried through in the business plan being developed and delivered to the state Legislature for consideration.

Tennenbaum and Morshed had agreed to put Palmdale in the preliminary planning phase, but not to carry it through the entire process.

This didn't go unnoticed by Palmdale officials.

Just as the vote was about to take place, Ledford, Myers and Randy Floyd, Palmdale's senior analyst, huddled in the rear of the large board room and hurriedly scribbled an alternative motion on a slip of paper torn from a notebook.

The paper was handed to authority member Donna L. Andrews, who had been passively quiet through most of the two-day meeting.

She read the paper, folded it up, and broke her silence, announcing she had a motion.

Her motion was to have both Palmdale and the I-5 alignment considered. But, she wanted the route through Palmdale to be the preferred route, and the one presented to Legislature.

The tired, weary looks on the faces of Tennenbaum and Morshed were telling signs that they would not argue the point further.

Moments later, a vote was taken. Eight members to one, an alignment was approved from San Francisco to L.A. - via the Central Valley to Bakersfield to Palmdale to Santa Clarita.

Ledford, who sat in the front row of the board room with an intense look on his brow - wrenching his hands the whole time - stomped and clapped like a young boy after hitting a grand slam during his first Little League game. A shout of joy was heard from the back of the room.

Myers said he was sitting in the back of the room with Floyd, when they realized something was wrong, and called Ledford back to confer.

When they realized the oversight was a "sleight of hand," as Myers referred to it, they knew they had to move quickly.

"Things were moving very, very quickly at that point," Myers said.

Floyd, who spearheaded the effort to get outside support, prepared outlines, and helped manage speakers, called the tactics by Tennenbaum and Morshed outright trickery.

"The high-speed authority staff was definitely trying to manipulate the process," he said. "We have not seen anything that suggests that the high-speed rail authority staff was correct."

That's when "we all recognized that once again staff was trying to cut us out," he added.

And that's when Palmdale prevailed.

"It was a big win for us and a big day for Southern California" Floyd said.

Now that Palmdale's position on the state's high-speed rail system is virtually locked in, the next step is to maintain the pole position.

The authority must still approve a business plan, with environmental impact studies and cost analysis. Then, there's a decision on which technology to use.

Two different technologies are being considered: Steel wheel, like the TGV in France, and Magnetic Levitation (MagLev), which has yet to be built and used to scale.

The advantage of steel-wheel high-speed rail trains is the track can be built cheaper and, in some instances, existing track may be used.

Where MagLev shines is in its performance. MagLev trains travel on a frictionless surface, saving energy and time. Top speeds of steel wheel technology are estimated at 220 mph. MagLev trains, it's believed, may exceed speeds of 310 mph.

After the business plan is formed, it must be submitted to the Legislature. This is scheduled to happen sometime in December.

If approved by the Legislature and the governor, voters would have to vote on whether to tax themselves, creating a bond for the public-private funded project.

Once that happens, land acquisitions and further planning can be conducted for a system that's between one and two decades away.

While no immediate effects will be felt in the Valley if a high-speed rail system is developed and comes through the Valley, long-term economic impacts are expected to be tremendous.

According to a study commissioned by Palmdale, nearly $500 million in economic benefits can be gained by having a high-speed rail route through the high desert.

The report considers three components: real estate, development of the Palmdale Airport and attraction of industry.

Because the Valley is one of the few places in L.A. County with so much remaining undeveloped property, reducing the commute time between the high desert and L.A. from its current one-to-1 1/2 hour trip to less than 30 minutes is expected to draw people away from the overcrowded city, where property prices are lofty.

Gregg Anderson, a 70-year-old real estate developer, believes the price of property in the high desert is going to skyrocket some time within the next 10 years.

Anderson is developing Rancho Vista, a 1,300-acre community in Palmdale. The project, estimated 70% complete, has more than 500 lots, including a golf course. Project completion is expected in the next five years.

According to Anderson, who's been building communities for the last 40 years, Rancho Vista will support up to 20,000 residents - all from growth he expects to happen despite not yet having a high-speed rail stop in Palmdale.

While Anderson doesn't believe an immediate impact on the real estate market will be felt, he said high-speed transit to the L.A. basin will eventually prove to be a boon.

"Undoubtedly it will increase and improve property values dramatically," Anderson said. "It will put us in touch with San Francisco, with Los Angeles and San Diego."

Because the high desert would have quick ground connection to metropolitan cities with international airports, like L.A. and San Francisco, "it opens up any market in the world," Anderson said, adding, "You could go to a Laker game and be there in 30 to 40 minutes."

Anderson, who lobbied Epstein, his longtime friend, and other authority members on behalf of Palmdale, said he believes the biggest impact of a high-speed rail system will be felt just before the system is completed.

"I would say we're looking at close to a decade from now," he said. "When it becomes a reality, we'll see an acceleration of companies coming here. It will be dramatic."

Now, Palmdale's efforts will focus on keeping Palmdale in as a stop on the high-speed rail system. For now, that will be up to Ledford, Myers and Floyd.

The next step, Myers said, is to "bury Gorman for good."

A rail alignment paralleling the I-5 would pass through the sleepy city of Gorman.

Myers said he plans to go to work on uncovering more faults in the route paralleling the I-5, with emphasis on geological studies.

A route over the Grapevine would require a significant amount of tunneling.

"There's just no question in our mind that it's going to be much cheaper to go though the Antelope Valley," Myers said.

When growth figures are taken into account, Myers added, the decision must be made on the number of people served. And those people will be coming from not only the Valley, but Kern and east San Bernardino counties as well, Myers said.

Jim Gosnell, the director of planning for SCAG, said his organization was pleased with the authority's decision to put a high-speed stop in Palmdale.

"We were supportive of the Palmdale alignment," he said.

Gosnell said he believes a high-speed train would provide relief to the Valley's commuting population, which is estimated at between 32,000 and 50,000.

"It would provide an alternative to having to drive," he said.

A high-speed train would also bring success to SCAG's regional plan to make more use of outlying airports, such as Palmdale and Ontario, to provide relief to LAX, which is expected to be inundated with up to 20 million passengers per year by the year 2020.