The California High Speed Rail Authority has released its 2018 Business Plan.  It portends to finally reveal the true cost for construction of Phase I of the project.  The new cost estimate is at a base of $77.3 billion to a possible $98.1 billion dollars.  Completion of Phase I is now projected for year 2032. […]

The State Legislature recently approved on a bipartisan basis, an Audit of the High Speed Rail Authority. The Legislature also needs to authorize an audit of Caltrain, the Bay Area commuter line. Caltrain is exhibiting extreme incompetence and has wasted millions of dollars of public funds. If ever a public agency needs to face an […]

“I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!“ should be the cry from the voters of California when thinking about the High Speed Rail project. In 2008, now 10 years ago, voters passed the 10 billion dollar Prop 1A bond measure to fund a High Speed Rail project that would, in […]

The California State Joint Legislative Audit Committee did indeed approve an audit of the High Speed Rail project. But we now learn results from this audit will be severely handicapped by the scope of the audit that was passed. The Democrat dominated committee, with the effort by Senator Jim Beall (D), did join with Rep […]

The presentation by Roy Hill at the last Authority board meeting finally revealed a major cost increase in the Central Valley section of the High Speed Rail project ($2.8 billion or 35% increase). This is hardly news to many of us who have been following the project. Indeed, leaked reports of escalating costs (and other […]

The Bay Area Commuter line, Caltrain, with a refusal by Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao to give her signature to its grant application, has been denied a Federal Transit Administration (FTA) $647 million full funding grant agreement (FFGA). The FTA Grant was to partially fund a $2 billon project to electrify Caltrain’s tracks with the objective […]

A brewing scandal involving Federal Funding for the Bay Area Commuter line, Caltrain, has emerged.  Caltrain has been seeking funding from the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) for its “modernization program”.  Caltrain has been seeking approval for a FTA Full Funding Grant Agreement (FFGA) in the amount of $647 million. Caltrain was pushing very hard to […]

The local California Bay Area commuter train, Caltrain, has for years been planning to convert from diesel powered trains, to electrically powered train sets. Obtaining funding for the project, which has doubled in projected cost in the last 5 years, has been the major obstacle for Caltrain in achieving that goal. Now we find Caltrain […]

At the Rail~Volution Conference held in San Francisco on Oct 12 2016, Authority Chair Dan Richard delivered a talk and made some remarks. Chair Richard clearly stated the Authority’s real mission is not High Speed Rail, but Rail Modernization. Quoting from a transcript of his remarks we read: “Well thanks.. One of my biggest frustrations is that we actually […]

Unfortunately, Governor Jerry Brown has let his lust to continue the High Speed Rail project go completely overboard and gave his signature of approval to AB 1889. As I have previously written,  this bill erases many of the restrictions, which were included in the voter approved Prop 1A bond measure of 2008. These restrictions were included […]