The California High-Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) is releasing its second project-level Draft Environmental Impact Report/Environmental Impact Statement (EIR/EIS) for the 49-mile project that would provide service between the Salesforce Transit Center in San Francisco and the San Jose Diridon Station. The document for the Northern California project section will be available for public comment starting Friday, July 10.
The California High-Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) announced that more than 4,000 construction jobs have been created across 119 miles of the high-speed rail project. More than 73% of the workers dispatched to various construction sites reported living within the Central Valley.
The California High-Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) is releasing the project-level draft environmental document for the approximately 14-mile Burbank to Los Angeles Project Section. The document for the Southern California project section will be available for public review and comment starting on Friday, May 29.
The California High-Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) is releasing the first project-level Draft Environmental Document for a project section in Northern California. The document, which covers the 90-mile extent of the 145-mile San Jose to Merced Project Section from Scott Boulevard in Santa Clara to Carlucci Road in Merced County, will be open for public comment starting on Friday, April 24.
The California High-Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) is releasing the first Draft Environmental Document for a significant project section into Los Angeles County. The document, which covers the approximately 80-mile stretch of the project from Bakersfield to Palmdale, will be open for public comment starting on Friday, Feb. 28.
After nearly a decade of analysis and active engagement with communities along the route, the California High-Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) Board of Directors recently concurred with staff recommendations for the Preferred Alternatives for the high-speed rail routes in Northern California.
By now, everybody in the rail management and advocacy communities, along with much of the general public, knows what happened to California’s high-speed rail (HSR) project. It’s dead. In his State of the State address, Governor Gavin Newsom scaled it down. Seven days later, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) finished the job with a letter from Administrator Ron Batory to Newsom and California High-Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) CEO Brian P. Kelly.
For all intents and purposes, California’s high-speed rail project is dead. At least that’s the consensus among several observers of the U.S. high-speed rail scene, which, sadly, appears to be based more upon fantasy than reality.
“Real high-speed rail might still make sense in the U.S. in the densely populated Northeast Corridor and among certain high-population city-pairs elsewhere in the U.S. in the ‘sweet spot’ of 250-500 miles apart (too far to drive easily, too short to fly conveniently), if costs can be kept under control,” writes Eno Center for Transportation Senior Fellow and Eno Transportation Weekly Editor Jeff Davis. “But future high-speed rail projects would do well to avoid seven mistakes that have caused the California system to be indefinitely delayed.”
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, citing budget pressures, says the state will not move forward with plans to connect Los Angeles and San Francisco by high-speed rail. Rather, Newsom said the state will build only the 119-mile Central Valley segment of the line, linking Merced and Bakersfield. Newsom’s remarks, made during his first State of the State address Feb. 12, were not widely expected.
