High-Speed Rail and Transbay Terminal: Build It Anyway?

Transbay Transit Center Demo from steelblue on Vimeo.

With all the Occupy Wherever-Everywhere this past month, we might have missed the Feds eliminating any money next year for high-speed rail and an increasingly bleak outlook for fast trains beyond 2013. And as Matier & Ross point out, there's speculation about the consequences for the glittering Transbay Terminal now under construction. Above, video from more optimistic times. The Transbay Authority says it's still on, but Supervisor Sean Elsbernd thinks:

What we could wind up with is a big basement under the most expensive bus station in the world

There's still a few billion dollars committed to building the first section of high-speed rail through Bakersfield, but as for the entire Anaheim-San Francisco route, the estimates are up and many would-be riders are yet unborn. Undeterred, the draft EIR for the entire project- terminal, tower and elevated park- wends it's way through the EIR process.
· S.F. Transbay Terminal Project Has Murky Future [Matier & Ross/SF Gate]
· Feds Ax High-Speed Funding, Approve Vegas Train Right of Way [Curbed LA]
· California Bullet Trains New Plan: $98.5B, LA to SF in 2033 [Curbed LA]
· Transbay Terminal Draft EIR Dramarama [Curbed SF]

Transbay Tower

101 First Street, san francisco, ca