High Speed Rail

While President Obama grappled with political concerns during his trip to China this week, General Electric was busy signing technology-sharing agreements with Beijing partners -- including a high-speed rail pact that positions GE to leap ahead of its competitors in the race for business from the Obama administration's bullet train rollout.

As the Obama administration prepares to roll out its ambitious new investment in high-speed rail (HSR), right-of-way -- primary control over a stretch of train track, whether existing or envisioned -- has become a major consideration for states that want to jumpstart local networks.

When House transportation committee chairman Jim Oberstar (D-MN) recently accused his colleagues of lacking the “political will” to pursue long-term reform of infrastructure policy, he wasn’t simply employing a D.C. rhetorical flourish. To understand what Oberstar meant, let’s travel to Berlin for a moment. A German-made high-speed rail car. (Photo: Spiegel) Colby Itkowitz, CQ’s crack … Continued

The White House's economic stimulus law included several large new spending programs, from $4 billion for broadband to $2.4 billion for electric car batteries. But nothing has aroused so much interest -- and criticism -- as the $8 billion for American high-speed rail.

Stephen O'Brien has been coaxing an oasis out of a most unlikely environment for a long time: the small green patches at either end of the ground level Mission Street frontage of the Transbay Terminal. He started back in 1958, when the old Key System train tracks that used to bring East Bay electric streetcars to the Transbay Terminal were being torn out. The Transbay Terminal in those days was a crucial commuter hub, bringing passengers from all over the East Bay. If you've ever ridden the F bus from Berkeley to San Francisco, you've ridden on the descendant of the same-lettered streetcar that once transported you from downtown Berkeley to downtown San Francisco just a minute longer than BART does today!

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger announced today that the state has applied for $4.7 billion in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) stimulus money for the California High Speed Rail Authority (CAHSRA) to start the nation's most ambitious high speed rail project.

They may sound like villains in the next Transformers movie, but "megaregions" are a vital aspect of U.S. life these days. The vast majority of the nation lives in one of the 11 inter-city clusters identified by America 2050 in its new analysis of the future of high-speed rail, making megaregions the best potential sites for rail development.

In recent weeks, I've been busily making what you might call a negative argument for high-speed rail -- pointing out the many ways in which arguments against HSR are deficient. That's all well and good, but positive cases for HSR need to be made, as well.

A Sacramento judge ruled this week that the California High Speed Rail Authority failed to provide an adequate description of the San Francisco to Los Angeles high speed train project in its Environmental Impact Report. Critics of the project hailed it as an important victory, but the fine print of the decision may leave less room for their celebration, as the court rejected contentions about the project's route, biological impacts, and ability to induce sprawl in the Central Valley.