In a recent Monocle interview posted this past Sunday, Richard Tolmach of the California Rail Foundation gives the California High Speed Rail Project (CAHSR) a 50/50 chance of happening.

Weighing in its favor is the sheer size of the regional air market between the Bay Area and Southern California, the largest in the country. This makes the project attractive to investors. But the current route alignment sets it at a potentially insurmountable disadvantage to both auto and air travel.

“Over the last number of years, there has been some land speculation in various places, so the line goes via a slightly odd route that is 100 miles longer than the highway. So high-speed rail starts with a handicap,” explains Tolmach, in terms of being “competitive with the energy utilized [per trip] and with the cost of driving and air travel.”

“There is a 50 percent chance it won’t happen, because the CAHSR Authority will expend all of its planning money before they can package a project that’s workable.”

According to Tolmach, some Japanese and European companies (Kawasaki, Bombardier) are interested in bringing their own funding sources, subject to a significant project redesign that would make the capital costs more affordable and the overall system financially viable to operate.

Indeed, Tolmach’s assessment of the project’s main design flaw underscores the tension between the public mission of the high-speed rail project – to serve as an economic development tool that will connect the struggling Central Valley  to urban job markets – and the private imperative to maximize profit if the project is to attract a sufficient amount of capital to move forward.

By now, any marginally informed Los Angeleno has heard of 30/10, Villaraigosa’s ambitious program to complete 30 years of planned transit projects in the next 10 years.

The  economic and environmental benefits could be enormous. Naturally, the long-term land use implications of this initiative have also attracted developer interest.

At the recent ULI Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) Summit, 30/10 took center stage during a thinly-veiled stump speech by Sen. Barbara Boxer, who is shoring up support for her 2010 re-election campaign. To a cheering crowd, Boxer announced a minor breakthrough at the federal level related to environmental clearance for the 9.3-mile Westside Subway Extension, which is perhaps the signature project of 30/10 .

The level of excitement was palpable in the room, and yet I found myself asking: how much will the Westside Subway Extension actually promote TOD, defined in the traditional sense as development within a 1/2-mile radius of a station area?

The prospects for TOD along the Westside Subway alignment are less promising than they might intuitively seem.

Based on the proposed alignment, I concluded that the potential for TOD remains elusive at best, especially on the Westside “proper”:

Veteran’s Administration Hospital – future development on or around this site is virtually DOA, given the political forces in favor of maintaining the grounds as open space, as noted in my September 19, 2009 post.

UCLA – the station will most likely be located on Lot 36 of the UCLA campus. University property is exempt from local land use controls; the city therefore cannot change station area zoning to encourage future development.

Century City – the alignment here is constrained by the San Andreas fault line, which was discovered during seismic tests to run spookily parallel to the section of Santa Monica Blvd near Wilshire.  Which means any high-rise development in this immediate area should logically be out of the question, too.

Wilshire/Rodeo – the existing density of this commercial district, combined with the surrounding NIMBYists south of Wilshire, makes it difficult to envision dramatic changes here, although it could just be my lack of imagination.

Wilshire/La Cienega – same caveat as above applies here.

Wilshire/Fairfax – will the owner of Johnnie’s Coffee Shop finally sell out? will LACMA develop the fenced-off no man’s land behind the former Bullocks May?

Wilshire/La Brea – prospects here are more sanguine. A Metro-owned property at the NW corner of the intersection, along with adjacent city parking lots, could be prime candidates for TOD.

This is not intended to dampen enthusiasm for the overall objective of 30/10, which remains a worthy initiative. Still, it seems unfortunate that the proposed station locations on the Westside are diminishing the opportunities for real estate development typically associated with transit. Hopefully, between now and final design, some of those location options could change.