MADRID -- At 8 a.m. at the Puerto de Atocha train station in central Madrid, business travelers armed with cell phones and laptops, and pleasure travelers toting cameras and carry-on bags, made their way through security to board the high-speed trains that connect Spain's capital to cities across the nation.
The sprawling station, which dates to the 1890s, serves not only the AVE, or Alta Velocidad Española high-speed trains, but also the city's metro subway and commuter trains. It sits amid a bustling district of offices, hotels, restaurants, museums and other businesses.
This is the vision shared by backers of California's proposed and controversial high-speed rail system — and there are lessons that California can learn from Spain's 20-year history with high-speed trains. Top among them is just how hard it is to be self-sufficient, even when conditions seem ideal, as they have in Spain.
Despite popular and political support from the beginning, the AVE rail system faces a tougher future as a result of Europe's financial crisis. Service between some smaller cities has been cut because too few people ride the trains, leaving some wondering whether it is anything more than a luxury commuter service.
"They haven't prioritized which lines are most important, so a lot of money has been spent on lines that aren't as important," said Jacinto Calvillo, a passenger waiting to board a train in Valencia.
Since the late 1980s, Spain has spent about $60 billion to build and equip its high-speed network. The long-distance AVE trains and their regional cousins Avant and Alvia, which share the high-speed tracks, connect major urban centers but pass through smaller cities and stretches of rural farmland, just like what is planned for California.
They've gotten people out of their cars and off airplanes, sliced travel times and attracted millions of riders a year — just what California rail boosters hope will happen here.
President Barack Obama touted Spain's system as a model for U.S. high-speed rail plans when he announced billions of dollars in federal investments in April 2009.
Spain's system, however, was launched in conditions much different from those in California today. Political unity, a thriving economy and the spotlight of international events — a world exposition in Seville and the Olympic Games in Barcelona — provided an impetus for Spain to embark on its high-speed journey.
About the only major point of contention was where the first line from Madrid should go (Seville won over Barcelona), not whether the system should be built.
California, by contrast, is attempting to launch its high-speed train project as the state slogs through the aftermath of the worst economic recession since the Great Depression, and money is all-important.
The Obama administration has committed about $3 billion in federal transportation and stimulus money to California's project, but a political and budgetary chasm between Republicans and Democrats in Washington casts doubt on prospects for future federal support.
And a growing price tag — estimated in November at $98.5 billion to build the 520-mile stretch between Los Angeles and San Francisco — is eroding support among legislators in Sacramento and fanning public opposition in California.
In Spain, the high-speed rail effort has rapidly expanded to become Europe's most extensive high-speed network — third in the world behind China's and Japan's — while facing remarkably little of the NIMBYism, farm opposition or politics fermenting throughout California. The project has been supported by conservative and Socialist-led governments.
RSS
E-Mail
Print
reprint or license
