Action Items: Tell Governor-Elect Becerra we want our HSR...

Here are two Streetsblog action items to start your weekend.

Tell Governor-Elect Xavier Becerra to build California High-Speed Rail sooner

High-speed rail infrastructure in Madera, as seen from Amtrak. Photo: Streetsblog/Rudick

Now that it’s decided who will take the reins in Sacramento, transportation advocates aren’t wasting any time. Move California, the Transbay Coalition, and Move LA have already launched a campaign to persuade governor-elect Xavier Becerra to finish the state’s rail modernization project faster. From the groups’ action-item:

As millions more people call California home in the coming years, high-speed rail will keep us connected with less traffic, air pollution, and expensive freeway widening.

Because California has made tremendous progress on America’s largest infrastructure project, we are closer than ever to clean, rapid transit across the state.

The California High-Speed Rail Authority has electrified the rail corridor from San Francisco to San Jose, set up over 100 miles in the Central Valley that are getting ready for tracks, increased rail capacity and safety in Los Angeles, and secured the environmental approvals needed for this megaproject.

The work that remains is relatively straightforward from an engineering perspective. But the hardest hurdles are political.

Advocates are asking for three specific changes:

To speed up California high-speed rail, please sign the petition to urge your elected representatives to take three key actions:

Require PG&E and other utilities to quickly collaborate with the California High-Speed Rail Authority so that utility equipment that impedes the high-speed rail can be relocated soon.

Remove barriers to outside investment so public-private partnerships can help the next steps of the project.

Require the well-funded highway agency Caltrans and local highway authorities to provide support in upgrading roads (including designing, building, and funding) to bridge or tunnel them out of the project’s path.

Be sure to add your name to the petition.

Let Caltrans know that people on bikes have a right to cross the Bay too

The Richmond-San Rafael Bridge on a Monday morning in 2024 before the barrier was squeezed over, closing the bike lane and turning over the entire deck to drivers. Photo: MCBC

Streetsblog readers will remember the retrograde decision by the apparently misnomered Bay Conservation and Development Commission to close the Richmond-San Rafael bike and pedestrian path and turn it over to drivers.

The fight isn’t over. There’s still a chance to save bike access to the bridge. Bike East Bay is asking supporters to write to Caltrans and demand access. From a Bike East Bay email blast:

The California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) has officially launched the environmental review process for the upper deck of the Richmond–San Rafael (RSR) Bridge.

Right now, they are accepting public scoping comments to decide which long-term alternatives to evaluate in their upcoming Draft Environmental Impact Report (EIR).

We need to make sure Caltrans hears one clear message: We demand full-time, 24/7 access for the Richmond–San Rafael Bridge multi-use path.

Right now, the bike lane is open only on weekends. One option Caltrans is considering is, predictably, removing bike access completely, including on weekends. So much for the supposed “compromise” that was used to justify closing the multi-use path on weekdays in the first place. Bike East Bay urges people to email Caltrans at 580RSRBridgeWIP@dot.ca.gov. There will also be public meetings. Details on times, locations, and Zoom links here.

Comments must be received by 5:00 PM on Friday, December 4, 2026.