California High-Speed Rail News

People in Los Angeles and San Francisco often say that the initial links in a proposed north-south system would be "trains to nowhere."

In the seesaw battle to build a state-spanning high-speed rail line, Gov. Jerry Brown and other backers of the $68 billion system won a modest victory.

The Texas Department of Transport and Federal Railway Authority announced in June that they were beginning an Environmental Impact Study for the proposed private Texas Central Railways High Speed Rail corridor between Houston and Dallas.

High-speed rail will likely be a political piata again Tuesday, as the Fresno County Board of Supervisors takes another swing at deciding how it feels about California's proposed bullet-train program.

"With the multitude of projects currently underway in San Francisco, it is imperative that we create a coordinated vision for the future of this area; one that links state of the art transit systems with future growth," said San Francisco Planning Director John Rahaim.

ANKARA: Turkey on Friday inaugurates the first high-speed train link between its main cities of Ankara and Istanbul, in the latest bid by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to modernise the country's infrastructure.

About 25 people got tips Thursday on how small businesses can do business with the state during a seminar in downtown Fresno.

A state appeals court on Thursday upheld a proposed route for California's high-speed rail line connecting the San Francisco Bay Area to the Central Valley.

State appeals justices on Thursday upheld a lower court's approval of an environmental report that selected the Pacheco Pass between Gilroy and Los Banos as the preferred corridor for running high-speed trains from the Bay Area to the San Joaquin Valley.

It is looking more likely with secure funding from Cap and Trade money that the first 300 miles of High Speed Rail will be running between Burbank and Merced in the next 8-10 years.The High Speed Rail Authority is planning to finish 800 miles in California in about 16 years.

No, the debilitating lawsuits haven't been resolved, so the HSR Authority still can't tap the $10 billion in voter-approved bonds, but the new state budget based on cap-and-trade revenue for HSR is sparking inquiries from private investors.

As California HSR finally moves toward construction, Turkey is moving ahead with plans to expand its own existing HSR network, including the all-important Ankara to Istanbul line set to open on Thursday: The Ankara-Istanbul highspeed rail line, the next stage of the high-speed train project, part of the government's plan for a major overhaul of the ... (more)

On February 26th of this year, a much delayed congressional hearing on oil-by-rail safety finally occurred.

A year after a high-speed train derailed on the outskirts of the Spanish city of Santiago de Compostela, survivors and relatives of some of the 80 people who died accuse current and previous Spanish governments of having failed to prevent the accident.

Workers ease into place a large piston-and-cylinder structure next to a buried concrete piling near Madera as part of an engineering test for California's high-speed rail project.

Gov. Rick Scott, who killed a high-speed train system for Tampa Bay, has become a vocal cheerleader for another train: All Aboard Florida, a privately funded rail venture on Florida's east coast.

Major water districts in California are quietly considering using property taxes - and possibly raising them without a vote of the public - to help fund Gov. Jerry Brown's $25 billion plan to build two massive tunnels through the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.

A solution looking for a problem? A genuine leap forward? The best we can expect from political compromise? Or something truly brave? Take your pick.

The July 16 Bee holds two revealing articles: First is the scheme to divide California into six states, the other is about the Fresno County Board of Supervisors considering reversing their support of high-speed rail.

California's new budget allocates a quarter of the fees collected through the state's cap-and-trade program to high-speed rail that should eventually connect the Bay Area to Los Angeles.