$701 million payroll boost forecast from California high-speed rail

During its planned eight-year construction starting in 2012, the California High-Speed Rail project would generate 160,000 construction jobs statewide and more than 320,000 permanent jobs, according to "Thinking Ahead: High-Speed Rail in Southern California" by researchers at the University of California, Irvine.

It would also create substantial reductions in pollution and reduce freeway traffic jams, supporters say.

"Just as the Interstate Highway System transformed the way Americans live and where they work, high-speed rail has the same transformative potential," the authors wrote.

"High-speed rail will ... bring to the Southern California region a new and faster mode of interregional travel, with substantial time-saving and cost advantages of both auto and air networks for the vast majority of destinations."

The high-speed rail proposal is envisioned as hundreds of miles of new and existing track linking San Diego, Los Angeles, Sacramento and San Francisco and points in between.

The aerodynamic trains will reach speeds of 220 miles per hour, enabling travelers to get from L.A. to San Francisco in less than 2 hours 40 minutes, compared with six hours by car. In a January statement, the Obama administration called the plan "among the most ambitious in the nation."

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