LOS ANGELES (CNS) - At last, construction will officially get underway
Tuesday on the first 29-mile segment of the $68-billion Los Angeles-San
Francisco bullet train project.

The milestone will be marked in Fresno by a groundbreaking ceremony that
will serve as what the Los Angeles Times called a symbol of the significant
progress the project has made against persistent political and legal
opposition.

In the last two years, the California High-Speed Rail Authority has
prevailed in a series of court challenges to the project, won a federal
exemption from state environmental rules, secured several key legislative
victories that improved its future funding and made a politically savvy bet to
move up by several years the inauguration of service in Southern California,
The Times reported.

But the groundbreaking will also serve as a reminder of the enormous
financial, technical and political risks the project still faces.

Rail officials haven’t yet lined up funds needed to complete the initial
system over the next 14 years, The Times reported. Additionally, construction
is starting two years later than the state had promised; acquisition of private
property is going slower than expected; and rail officials have yet to finalize
legal agreements with two of the nation’s most powerful private freight
railroads, which are concerned about how a bullet train network will affect
their operations.

Political supporters, mostly Democrats, see the start of construction as
a validation of their vision to make California a high-speed rail leader and
say the project is being well managed, according to The Times But their mostly
Republican opponents warn that the state is plunging deeper into a costly,
flawed endeavor unlikely to be completed.

Governor Jerry Brown, who has made the high-speed project one of his highest
priorities, will preside over Tuesday’s groundbreaking at the future site of
the downtown station in Fresno. The concept for a California bullet train
originated in Brown’s first terms as governor.