Dear DesertXpress developers: Has your project gone off the tracks?

Richard N. Velotta

Richard N. Velotta

It’s been more than a year since the Sun broke the story that developers of the DesertXpress high-speed rail proposal between Las Vegas and Victorville, Calif., would seek a $5 billion federal loan to build its 185-mile track across the Mojave Desert.

At the time, we reported that loans through the federal Railroad Rehabilitation & Improvement Financing program typically take about three months to process, but that this loan was more than five times the size of most proposals submitted in the program.

In the past year, I’ve attended presentations by DesertXpress officials to get updates on progress.

Over the past several months, a handful of federal government agencies have approved routes and rights-of-way, but little information has emerged on the status of the project, and neither the company nor the Federal Railroad Administration returns phone calls.

The more transparent the company is, the better chance it would have to win an uphill battle to persuade the public to embrace what most believe to be a flawed plan.

Call me, DesertXpress. I want to tell your story.

I want to know if Sen. Harry Reid is getting frustrated with your lack of progress the way he did with the backers of a proposed maglev project.

You know the one I mean — the project that would have gone all the way to Los Angeles and Anaheim and better served Nevadans wanting to go to Southern California as well as Californians looking to come to Las Vegas.

The one with the technology capable of scaling Cajon Pass, unlike your technology.

The one embraced by several communities that viewed the line as a high-speed link between airports that could be used by commuters catching planes.

The senator pulled the financial rug from under the maglev project. Sure, he said he was frustrated that nothing had been accomplished in 30 years of maglev planning. But once the federal government passed legislation in 2008 to finance the engineering for a demonstration project, the senator managed to hijack that $45 million to other transportation projects a year later.

Nebraska Sen. Mike Johanns criticized Reid for that, calling it a highway spending earmark. Is it possible that DesertXpress is skating on thin ice if the senator is willing to pull support after just one year?

I doubt he would do that to friends who helped him raise money for his last re-election campaign.

I also want to know, DesertXpress, if you’re still confident in the Las Vegas-Victorville transportation model after all the scorn you’ve endured in the past four years. Aren’t you tired of hearing people say, “Victorville?” in disbelief when you explain that you’re asking Southern Californians to drive there, park their cars and board a train to take them on what would be the easier leg of the journey to Las Vegas? Let’s not forget, either, that our California visitors would have no car once they arrived in Nevada and would have to rely on public transportation, taxis or a rental. Never mind that there’s virtually no upside to Las Vegans looking to go to Southern California, either.

I’d like to know if you’ve rethought the maglev technology since the commercially operating line in Shanghai is maintaining a more than 99 percent on-time efficiency rating after eight years in service. Isn’t it about time we stop calling maglev “unproven?”

I know, your suppliers are all friends and steel-wheel-on-rail guys, the same ones who dominate policy at the Federal Railroad Administration. There’s virtually no hope that this is going to change with that good ol’ boy network in place, despite President Barack Obama’s urging to get the fastest train in the world deployed in the United States. I don’t think he was talking about a 150 mph system that most don’t consider to be high-speed rail anymore.

I’d also like to know the status of planning the proposed rail link between Victorville and Palmdale, Calif., the only real hope locals have of getting some form of ground-based mass transportation between here and L.A. Transportation experts are saying that tie-in to the California High-Speed Rail System at Palmdale is the best hope for creating a functioning mass transportation line in the West.

If that’s our best hope, we may be in trouble. Now that gasoline is heading toward $5 a gallon, developing mass transportation on trains is one obvious solution that could turn the tables.

I really want to hear your side of this, DesertXpress.

Call me.

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