With California’s high-speed rail project still expecting to receive tens of billions of dollars in federal funding, a new report from Washington, D.C., highlighted concerns about the plan’s financial assumptions. Read More
The former director of the California Department of Transportation was hired Tuesday to lead the state’s $68 billion high-speed rail project. Jeff Morales will join the California High-Speed Rail Authority after the agency’s board of directors unanimously approved his hiring. He replaces Roelof Van Ark, who stepped down March 2 after less than two years on the job. Read More
Already faced with a very cloudy future, the California High Speed Rail Authority was dealt yet another blow today, when its executive director announced he would be stepping down from his post in two months.
Roelof van Ark, who joined the state body less than two years ago, submitted his resignation on Thursday. van Ark’s departure comes at a perilous time for agency, which is charged with overseeing the state’s $98 billion rail project to connect San Francisco to Los Angeles. Read More
Momentum is building among state and federal officials to dissolve the California High-Speed Rail Authority and roll it into a proposed state transportation agency.
Last week, Gov. Jerry Brown suggested folding the authority — along with Caltrans, the California Highway Patrol and the Department of Motor Vehicles — into a new department. He said consolidation of the agencies, an idea in his 2012-13 budget proposal, would save the state money. Read More
The projected cost of the state’s high-speed rail project has more than doubled since 2009, but architects of the plan insist it won’t cost passengers any more to ride the trains between San Francisco and Los Angeles.
For figures detailing how details have changed between the 2009 and 2011 business plans for the state’s high-speed rail project, click on the photo to the right. Read More
A new report says California’s proposed high-speed railroad could cost state taxpayers more than three times the official $43 billion cost projection.
This $138 billion estimate comes from a trio of Bay Area analysts who have followed the project, which was conceived to carry residents from San Francisco to Los Angeles in about 2½ hours. Read More
A high-speed rail compromise designed to please Peninsula lawmakers and save billions of dollars has some backers of the project fearful the alignment will jeopardize the future of the swift-moving trains in San Francisco.
On Thursday, the California High-Speed Rail Authority will consider a proposal responding to concerns that an elevated railway would create barriers and lower property values within Peninsula communities. Read More
The northernmost stretch of Interstate 280 could be demolished and turned into an Octavia Boulevard-like parkway under options being considered by the California High-Speed Rail Authority.
The freeway currently ends around Fourth and King streets, near AT&T Park. But documents obtained by The San Francisco Examiner show it could be removed north of 22nd Street to accommodate high-speed rail, which is expected to travel through the Peninsula along Caltrain’s route. Read More
How bad is President Obama’s sole remaining high-speed project going? So bad that even the editorial board of The Los Angels Times is calling it a “monument” to poor planning. They write: Read More
