Q&A >> Interview with Boris Lipkin, Northern California high-speed rail director FULL SPEED AHEAD
There’s never a dull moment for Boris Lipkin, the man in charge of delivering the first high-speed rail segment, San Francisco to Bakersfield, to Golden State residents. The beleaguered project, which just received a scathing review from the California state auditor, is, at an estimated cost of at least $77 billion, woefully overbudget and at least four years behind schedule. The California High-Speed Rail Authority is confident it has the money to deliver the project from San Francisco to Gilroy and from Merced to Bakersfield, but it’s leaving the most challenging and high-risk portion of the so-called Valley-to-Valley span for last: the Pacheco Pass. The 13-mile tunnel is both daunting from an engineering perspective and is not yet funded.
But despite the mounting challenges, the vocal and persistent nagging of naysayers, and hundreds of lawsuits lobbed against the authority, Lipkin, who officially took over as the Northern California regional director this summer, remains unflinchingly optimistic.
Lipkin shared his outlook in an interview with this news organization. The interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Q
What does the project look like right now? How far has the construction come?
A
We have 119 miles under construction in the Central Valley. There are three different big contracts — that’s our first set of mega projects, essentially. What they’re doing now is a lot of bridges and the long lead-time items. If you’re building a giant structure, that’s obviously going to take longer than putting a little berm up for an at-grade section. So, that’s what’s moving forward.
We’ve invested about $4 billion so far. Ultimately, the project in the Central Valley will be about $10 billion, so we still have work to do, but we’re certainly making really good progress there. It’s been challenging. We started some of the work before we had all of the right of way, which was an issue and we’ve acknowledged that, but ultimately that’s progressing. If you go to Fresno right now, you’ll see bridges going up everywhere.
Q
What’s the plan for bringing highspeed rail to Northern California? A
What the business plan laid out, is the Valley-to-Valley line is where we want to start service — that’s San Francisco to Bakersfield. We also introduced the idea of phasing that line. That means, OK, after we finish the Central Valley piece, let’s start using Boris Lipkin of the California High-Speed Rail Authority took over as Northern California regional director this summer. BORIS LIPKIN PROFILE
Position: Northern California regional director for the California High-Speed Rail Authority
Age: 30
Hometown: Palo Alto
Residence: Burlingame
Education: Master’s degree in city planning from the University of Pennsylvania, bachelor’s degree from UCLA with majors in business economics and geography