Regional transportation officials Tuesday said they agreed with a new report that says building a high-speed rail line would be cheaper, less intrusive and easier on the environment than adding 3,000 miles of freeway lanes and the equivalent of two Ontario airports to improve travel between Southern and Northern California.

Temecula Councilman Ron Roberts, who serves on a Southern California Association of Governments transportation panel, said there is very little room for expanding airports such as San Diego's Lindbergh Field or for building new ones. And he said people will not stand for massive widening of freeways.

"We're out of space," Roberts said.

It would be a lot easier, he said, to squeeze in a rail line supporting trains capable of traveling faster than 200 mph in a network connecting San Diego and Riverside counties with Los Angeles, Fresno, San Francisco and Sacramento.

The report was issued by the California High Speed Rail Authority, a state agency formed by then-Gov. Gray Davis to design and build the project.

Proposed several years ago, the futuristic rail has been under study since early 2001 and much more analysis will be required before construction can begin. Completion is not anticipated for at least two decades and funding is uncertain.

A $10 billion bond on the November ballot would, if passed, fund the system's backbone between Los Angeles and San Francisco. However, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed delaying a vote until 2006 because of the state's fiscal crisis.

The 2,000-page draft environmental impact report, released Tuesday at news conferences in San Francisco and Los Angeles, looks at three options for accommodating an anticipated 63 percent increase in traffic over the next 20 years.

Under the first scenario, the state would build only those highway and airport projects currently in the planning stages.

Under the second, the state would build those projects and add nearly 3,000 miles of new highway lanes and 60 new airport gates and five runways, at a cost of nearly $82 billion in today's dollars.

The third option calls for a 700-mile high-speed rail system to supplement the currently planned highway and airport projects with trains running at top speeds of more than 200 mph. The system would cost $33 billion to $37 billion in today's dollars and carry as many as 68 million passengers a year by 2020, according to the report.

"Our conclusion is, and data shows, that basically the high-speed train is the best of the three options," said Mehdi Morshed, executive director of the California High-Speed Rail Authority.

Noting that the train's southern leg would run down Interstate 15 with stops in Temecula, Escondido, Mira Mesa and downtown San Diego, Roberts said the project has the potential to significantly ease local commuter traffic.

"I think it would take a tremendous number of cars off of the 15 freeway," Roberts said. "As it is, it is only going to get worse for a while. There are all these housing units being built along Winchester Road between Temecula and Hemet. In 20 years it's just going to be one city out here in the Winchester corridor."

Joe Kellejian, Solana Beach mayor and transportation chairman for the San Diego Association of Governments, said not only would the project ease I-15 traffic, it would deliver much-needed upgrades to the existing railroad on the North San Diego County coast. While the project mostly entails building a new system, a component calls for tunnels and grade separations to speed up travel along the Los Angeles-to-San Diego line.

"That's important to us," Kellejian said.

While the preliminary study indicates the project could have significant adverse impacts on North County's coastal lagoons, Kellejian said he is confident the railroad would be built in an environmentally friendly manner.

Environmentalists suggested railways would be less harmful than freeways, but that's not to say they don't have concerns.

"High-speed rail might provide a good alternative to airport crowding and pollution," said David Hogan, a spokesman for the Center for Biological Diversity in San Diego County. "But planners have their work cut out for them to avoid endangered natural areas and maintain coastal access."

Roberts and Kellejian said they support the governor's proposal to take the $10 billion bond off the ballot for now.

Roberts said that's good for the project; California voters are more likely to vote for a rail bond when the economy is purring again and the state's fiscal house is in order.

And Kellejian said the measure's removal is good news for San Diego County; voters there are more likely to give officials permission in November to extend the existing half-penny-on-the-dollar local sales tax for transportation if no other transportation finance measures are on the ballot.

Schwarzenegger is urging lawmakers to postpone the rail bond vote until 2006.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. Contact staff writer Dave Downey at (760) 740-3529 or ddowney@nctimes.com.