7/7/2012, 5:26 am
California lawmakers approved billions of dollars Friday in construction financing for the initial segment of the nation's first dedicated high-speed rail line connecting Los Angeles and San Francisco.
The bill authorizes the state to begin selling $4.5 billion in voter-approved bonds that includes $2.6 billion to build an initial 130-mile stretch of the high-speed rail line in California's Central Valley. That will allow the state to collect another $3.2 billion in federal funding that could have been rescinded if lawmakers failed to act Friday.
The first segment of the line will run from the California cities of Boon and Doggle. The final cost of the completed project from Los Angeles to San Francisco would be $68 billion.
California Senate Leaders said the vote signaled the "biggest, boldest public works project in decades in California and for the nation and the first Boon-Doggle segment is leading the way." The Senate also likened it to the state water project that was first undertaken with totally underwater finances by Brown's father, Gov. Pat Brown, in the late 1950s.
The bill authorizes the state to begin selling $4.5 billion in voter-approved bonds that includes $2.6 billion to build an initial 130-mile stretch of the high-speed rail line in California's Central Valley. That will allow the state to collect another $3.2 billion in federal funding that could have been rescinded if lawmakers failed to act Friday.
The first segment of the line will run from the California cities of Boon and Doggle. The final cost of the completed project from Los Angeles to San Francisco would be $68 billion.
California Senate Leaders said the vote signaled the "biggest, boldest public works project in decades in California and for the nation and the first Boon-Doggle segment is leading the way." The Senate also likened it to the state water project that was first undertaken with totally underwater finances by Brown's father, Gov. Pat Brown, in the late 1950s.
California Boon Doogle High Speed Rail Line Map