Photo – San Diego Trolley, which would not exist without the efforts of close TRAC collaborator State Senator Jim Mills, nor would the modern light rail transit renaissance starting in 1981.

Here is text of TRAC’s comments tonight on the California High Speed Rail Blog in response to criticism of our September 29th Sacramento Bee opinion article:

Robert said:
The TRAC plan is created by people who are way too caught up in small details and have lost sight of the bigger picture. Their ideas won’t go anywhere, of course. But it’s worth pointing out them why they’ve never been influential in Sacramento.

Robert, brush up on your California rail history. Rich Tolmach and TRAC, along with PCL were the sparkplugs behind the development and successful passage of Proposition 116 in 1990. Without the $2 billion in Prop 116 bond funds, the Capitol Corridor would simply not exist today at all, we’d still probably be stuck with only one or two San Joaquins, the Surfliners would probably be where they were 30-40 years ago (5-6 round trips per day, maybe), and a large number of transit projects would not have been built.

The same people, including Tolmach, who were involved with the Modern Transit Society (before creation of TRAC) successfully sold the concept of light rail in Sacramento, which opened in 1987. And without TRAC allies such as State Senator Jim Mills, the San Diego Trolley and the modern rebirth of light rail would never have occurred, or would have occurred much later than the 1980’s.