California High-Speed Rail News

After suffering a major setback from a court decision that prevents the authority from selling $10 billion in voter-approved bonds, a key federal agency has ruled that the authority must comply with environmental regulations before laying tracks.

In a mixed ruling on Monday, Kenny did not question going forward with the project.

Jeff Morales, center, chief executive officer of the California High Speed Rail Authority, talks with board members Tom Umberg and Lynn Schenk before the rail board meeting in Sacramento, Calif., Thursday, Dec. 5, 2013.

SACRAMENTO, Calif.-Critics and many political observers might see California's bullet-train project as nearly dead, but state officials made clear Thursday that the train is still heading down the rails at full speed.

The board that oversees California's embattled high-speed rail project is responding to recent legal and administrative setbacks and says it will file a new motion seeking blanket authority to sell $8.6 billion in state bonds.

The board that oversees California's embattled $68 billion high-speed rail project was meeting Thursday to discuss how to respond to a series of legal setbacks involving funding and environmental reviews.

The board that oversees California's embattled $68 billion high-speed rail project is meeting to discuss how to respond to a series of legal setbacks to the project.

California's proposed high-speed train was left in the lurch last week when a Sacramento Superior Court judge ordered the rail authority to rescind its original funding plan .

In an auditorium inside the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on a mid-April day in 2009, President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood unveiled an ambitious plan to revamp America's rail infrastructure.

CSR Corp. and China CNR Corp., the nation's two biggest trainmakers, won bids for 258 bullet trains worth as much as 44.3 billion yuan as China's high-speed rail network opens new lines.

Crikey readers talk high-speed rail and the importance of volunteering - plus a reader has a poem for Chrstopher Pyne Kylie Chan writes: Re.

A federal oversight board has turned down a request from the California High-Speed Rail Authority for conditional authorization to build the Fresno-Bakersfield section of the proposed statewide bullet-train line.

A few things have happened since California voters approved $10 billion in bonds for a $45 billion California High-Speed Rail project - which promised to take passengers from San Francisco to Los Angeles in 2 hours and 40 minutes - in 2008.

Along with the Hogwarts Express and Polar Express, California's proposed High-Speed Rail line is quickly becoming one of the world's most illustrious imaginary train lines.

High-speed rail projects may be struggling in California and facing increased opposition in the UK, but they have gotten a boost in two unlikely countries.

It's about time. For more than two years, Gov. Jerry Brown and his puppet leading the California High-Speed Rail Authority board, Dan Richard, have overstepped their legal authority and disregarded the will of the voters by pushing ahead full-throttle.

The California High-Speed Rail Authority recently released its biannual Project Update Report, boasting, "[T]he Authority has made significant progress in its mission to plan, build and operate the nation's first high-speed rail system as part of the statewide rail modernization program."

One of the most important things to remember about the lawsuits that have been filed against the California high speed rail project is that they come not from people who want high speed rail - they are coming from people who oppose the project.

Whether it's the possibility of a magnetic levitation train or the hyperloop idea proposed by Elon Musk, founder of PayPal, Tesla Motors and SpaceX, the route of potential alternative designs for California's putative bullet train invariably follows Interstate 5 from just west of Bakersfield to the San Francisco Bay area.

The Tampa to Orlando high-speed rail project was cancelled by Governor Rick Scott in 2011 to shield Florida taxpayers from billions of dollars in liabilities.