Critics says California HSR “wild bet”

I lobe the headline from the San Jose paper. California takes a huge step forward and this should set the tone for a national improvement in transportation infrastructure. The Mercury News has a story, and here is the salient point.

arly in the campaign, backers had stressed the environmental and transportation benefits that would come with high-speed trains whisking commuters from the Bay Area to Los Angeles in two and a half hours. But advocates on both sides of the measure agreed Wednesday that, with the state drifting further into economic recession, the promise of several hundred thousand new jobs from building and operating the bullet train may have sealed the deal in recent weeks.

“It’s a good transportation and environmental issue, but a much better jobs issue — like what FDR did to build us out of the Depression,” said Rod Diridon, Sr., a former Santa Clara County supervisor and a board member of the California High Speed Rail Authority, which would build and operate the system.

And as a footnote, here is Jane’s Executive Summary of international high speed rail developments for 2008. It’s an amazing read.

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Filed under: Passenger Rail Politics, Passenger Rail Transportatio Policy, Regional USA Passenger Rail, United States High Speed Rail

California Prop. 1A passing with 52%

Here is the Los Angeles Times map. Somebody from California please explain the significance of the passing counties. (Although I think I already know.)

Words do not express the importance of this development. A true European style High Speed Rail network in North American changes the transportation equation completely.

Filed under: Passenger Rail Politics, Passenger Rail Transportatio Policy, Regional USA Passenger Rail, United States High Speed Rail