California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said the most populous U.S. state will receive $902 million in additional federal funds to help build high- speed passenger-train service.
The funds from the Federal Railroad Administration are on top of a $2.3 billion grant to the state in January as part of federal stimulus efforts, said Andrea McCarthy, a spokeswoman for Schwarzenegger. Details of the funds will be announced by the U.S. Transportation Department later this week, she said, without elaborating.
“As the nation’s largest infrastructure project, California’s high-speed rail system will create hundreds of thousands of new jobs, reduce pollution, boost economic growth and link Californians from one end of this great state to the other,” Schwarzenegger said today in a statement.
California’s push for a bullet-train network, which the state forecasts to cost more than $40 billion, comes as the state tries to reduce a 12.4 percent jobless rate and curb greenhouse gas emissions from cars and airplanes.
State voters approved a $10 billion bond sale in 2008 to help fund construction of the 800-mile rail network that is to operate trains between San Francisco and Sacramento in the northern part of the state to Los Angeles and San Diego in the south.
Rachel Wall, a spokeswoman for the California High-Speed Rail Authority, wasn’t immediately available to comment.
source: businessweek
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