High Speed Rail

Gov. Rick Scott got to say no, yet again, to Florida's dreams of high-speed rail.

Ohio's and Wisconsin's loss will be 13 other states' gain.

In states where building high-speed rail is not politically toxic, elected leaders are scrambling to get a piece of the federal (essentially free) money Tea Party and Republican pols are unwilling to accept for rail projects. As soon as New Jersey governor Chris Christie killed the Access to the Region's Core tunnel under the Hudson River, Governor-elect Andrew Cuomo told the Federal Transit Administration he would gladly take the $3 billion the feds had committed to the project.

The California High-Speed Rail Authority (CAHSRA) Board of Directors won't make a decision on where to start building California's first high-speed rail segment until December, but nearly everyone can see the writing on the wall.

The U.S. Department of Transportation announced $2.4 billion in grants for high speed and commuter rail projects around the country today, including $900 million for various portions of California's rail network and High-Speed Rail project.

Last week I mentioned I was about to take Amtrak from DC to New York. Well, it cost over $200 (and there was nothing particularly "high speed" about that rail experience).

As California's high speed rail project continues to gain attention, both positive and negative, the makeup of visitors to the official website has been shifting, with an increasing number of general public who know very little about the project, according to the California High Speed Rail Authority (CAHSRA). In response to this trend and based on thousands of user surveys and feedback from 13 focus groups, the CAHSRA redesigned its website as a portal it hopes will be more user friendly, intuitive and useful to a wide range of interested public.

Tomorrow morning, I’m getting on a train from Washington, DC to New York. It’s going to take me almost three-and-a-half hours to get there.

Though most of the California political class celebrated the groundbreaking of the new Transbay Transit Center with U.S. DOT Secretary Ray LaHood in San Francisco yesterday, significant questions remain for funding a national high-speed rail network through the federal transportation act.