High Speed Rail

The California State Auditor released an unflattering report yesterday that accuses the California High Speed Rail Authority (CAHSRA) of mismanagement of the nation's largest high speed rail project, a move that put the CAHSRA and other supporters on the defensive yet again.

Image: Metro.net In perhaps the strongest sign yet of just how politically potent the statewide high speed rail project has become, a bid by a Republican Assemblywoman to squelch the project has fallen flat (Assembly Bill 2121) and as a face-saving move the bill has been amended to merely mandate the California High Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) submit funding … Continued

Transit advocates in San Francisco and residents up and down the Peninsula breathed a collective sign of relief today as the California High Speed Rail Authority Board ruled out two of the more unpopular routing options for the planned bullet train between San Francisco and Los Angeles.

When Cabinet secretaries appear in front of Congress' appropriations committees, which control the annual budgets for each federal agency, the proceedings tend to be dry affairs dominated by local concerns and arcane fiscal debates.

At a House transportation committee hearing today that marked the one-year anniversary of the Obama administration's economic recovery efforts, lawmakers offered praise for the stimulus law's impact on local infrastructure investments even as they hit upon three key areas of concern with its implementation.

Now that the Obama administration has awarded $8 billion in high-speed rail grants to more than two dozen states, with $2.5 billion more coming soon, why not keep thinking big when it comes to bullet-train expansion?

The White House officially unveiled its $3.8 trillion budget for the fiscal year 2011 this morning, seeking $1 billion to continue its high-speed rail investment and $530 million for the transportation leg of the Obama administration's inter-agency push to promote sustainable planning on the local level.

During yesterday's Tampa event awarding $8 billion in federal rail grants, Vice President Joe Biden pointed to the two states receiving the biggest share of stimulus money for true high-speed train projects: Florida and California, both run by GOP governors.

California's bid for a federal high-speed rail network with top speeds exceeding 200 miles per hour is often called the "only true" bullet train proposal on the table -- and the Obama administration agreed today, bestowing $2.34 billion on the Golden State to the delight of lawmakers and rail advocates.