That’s how much will be needed to help pay for a tunnel to connect the Transbay Terminal to the Caltrain station at Fourth and King streets.

As it turns out, none of the $2.5 billion in tunnel costs were included as part of the narrowly approved high-speed-rail deal.

It’s up to the locals to make the tunnel happen. If they don’t, the $68 billion high-speed-rail line from Los Angeles will dead-end several blocks from downtown proper.

Building the tunnel will put San Francisco in competition with those hoping to finish BART to San Jose – both projects will be tussling for $1.8 billion that the federal government will direct to the Bay Area in the coming years.

Just for work to start on the 1.2-mile dig through the heart of the city, however, the Bay Area has to come up with its own $650 million. The current plan is to raise $300 million from higher bridge tolls and $350 million in San Francisco sales-tax dollars.

“That’s a reasonable estimation,” said spokesman Randy Rentschler of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission.

José Luis Moscovich, executive director of the San Francisco County Transportation Authority, said city voters could be asked for the $350 million as part of an overall transportation-tax extension within the next two years.

The date for when the Legislature and voters would be asked to approve another $1 toll hike to raise the $300 million in tunnel money is a bit more elusive. Although acknowledging that toll money would be needed for a San Francisco tunnel, Rentschler says there are no plans on the boards to seek an increase.

Even if all the money does come through and the tunnel gets dug, High-Speed Rail Authority boss Dan Richard says, the bullet train won’t arrive in San Francisco until 2028 or so. Until then, the tunnel would be used only by Caltrain.

Oil and water: Even before they qualified their initiative for San Francisco’s November ballot last week, backers of the effort to restore Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park were turning up the campaign rhetoric.

According to a recent fundraising appeal, the century-old dam in the Sierra that supplies water for San Francisco, the Peninsula and elsewhere is an environmental disaster worse than the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010.

“Imagine the BP oil spill multiplied by 326: That’s how much water was deliberately flooded into Yosemite National Park,” Restore Hetch Hetchy executive Mike Marshall wrote in his appeal.

He added, “Your donation today sends a loud and clear message to San Francisco bureaucrats: When you’ve made a mess, you clean it up!”

“Pretty shameless,” shot back P.J. Johnston, spokesman for the pro-reservoir forces.

“A better comparison would be the catastrophic effects of demolishing Hetch Hetchy and draining a century-old lake,” he said, “which really would be a disaster for the economy and the environment.”

Filleted: With the help of friends, a gay South Bay couple has at least temporarily blocked the very Christian-minded Chick-fil-A chicken chain from opening an outlet in Mountain View.

City bureaucrats had recently issued a routine zoning variance to allow a Chick-fil-A franchise to be built on busy El Camino Real.

But David Speakman and his husband, Richard, of Mountain View – who in 2008 became the first gay couple in Santa Clara County to marry – had a bone to pick.

They didn’t like the company’s reputation for being antigay. The Georgia-based chain’s president did nothing to dispel that reputation recently when he defended “biblical principles,” including traditional marriage.

So David Speakman made an Internet appeal for the $1,000 needed to bring a zoning challenge before the Mountain View City Council – and within 14 hours, more than enough money had rolled in from donors.

That put Chick-fil-A on ice at least until September. In a statement, the company reaffirmed its “biblically based principles” but said it treats everyone – gay or straight – equally and with respect.

“It could be Mother Teresa that owns it, and it would be a bad place,” Speakman said, citing traffic and other concerns. “But because it was a bunch of bigots, it gave us an extra nudge.”

San Francisco Chronicle columnists Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross appear Sundays, Mondays and Wednesdays. Matier can be seen on the KPIX-TV morning and evening news. He can also be heard on KCBS radio Monday through Friday at 7:50 a.m. and 5:50 p.m. Got a tip? Call (415) 777-8815, or e-mail matierandross@sfchronicle.com.

Article source: http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/matier-ross/article/Bay-Area-faces-new-high-speed-rail-costs-3726796.php

Members of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission and the Association of Bay Area Governments approved going forward with further study of a possible Vehicle Miles Traveled tax on Thursday night, as part of a broader environmental review of several transportation options.

Under a proposal still in its early stages, drivers could be required to install GPS-like odometers or other devices in their vehicles and pay from less than a penny to as much as a dime for every mile driven. The idea could take a decade or more to be launched.

Commission spokesman Randy Rentschler acknowledged such a concept ultimately could prove a hard sell with Bay Area residents, who would likely resist both the travel tax and the government-mandated tracking devices.

“The last thing we’re interested in is where you go and what you do,” Rentschler said Thursday, after the vote. “What we’re trying to do is get people to figure out a way to raise revenue that they could support.”

Mileage taxes already have been subjected to pilot studies in Atlanta and several communities in Oregon and Washington state. Drivers who were given a sum of money and then had amounts deducted based on how much they drove logged fewer miles, according to the San Jose Mercury News ( http://bit.ly/Q4NbSP).

Based on current Bay Area driving patterns, a mileage tax could raise up to $15 million a day, the Mercury News said.

The two regional agencies are considering the tax as part of a broader, 25-year transportation and land-use plan to accommodate the 2.1 million new residents who are expected to reside in the Bay Area and to curb greenhouse gases.

Other ideas floated so far include raising bridge tolls during rush hour, creating more carpool lanes and funding public transportation options in counties north and east of San Francisco.

The draft environmental review is scheduled to be completed in January and the tax, as well as many other alternatives, will be presented for a vote in April, Rentschler said.

Article source: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/07/19/4642827/officials-float-san-francisco.html