High Speed Rail

Wisconsin Governor-Elect Scott Walker has pledged to kill the planned high speed rail line between Milwaukee and Madison. If current Governor Jim Doyle doesn’t beat him to it.

It's not really clear how this fits with an agenda of fiscal conservatism, but for some reason passenger rail has become a scapegoat for the political right.

As California's high speed rail project continues to gain attention, both positive and negative, the makeup of visitors to the official website has been shifting, with an increasing number of general public who know very little about the project, according to the California High Speed Rail Authority (CAHSRA). In response to this trend and based on thousands of user surveys and feedback from 13 focus groups, the CAHSRA redesigned its website as a portal it hopes will be more user friendly, intuitive and useful to a wide range of interested public.

Sure, I could pay more for an Acela and get there in less than three hours.

The story of high speed rail is one of extremes. The thought of high speed trains whizzing up and down the state is enough to induce a futuristic giddiness - and carry a plurality of voters in 2008's bond measure. But for some, the train line will be a community crushing blight, a noisy Berlin Wall carving deep into suburban utopia. So far, opposition to the high speed train has mainly been confined to Northern California, but that's probably because LA's NIMBYs are too busy suing the Expo Line.

About 10 years ago I attended a meeting of local activists held at the Southern California Association of Governments to hear a presentation about the proposed high speed rail network. This was back when few people were aware such an effort was underway. Attendance was heavily grassroots and environmentally oriented. Few present had knowledge of the project or the magnitude of the challenges it entailed. So after the slide show (this was pre Power Point) the questions were along the lines of was there any danger it would facilitate sprawl in the Central Valley, turning Fresno and Bakersfield into bedroom communities.

Flanked by City Council Members from Santa Monica and Los Angeles, as well as dozens of people waving signs proclaiming "fast trains are cool," CalPirg Transportation Advocate Erin Steva rallied supporters in front of Union Station for increased funding of the state's planned High Speed Rail Network.  While some "fast train" advocates were questioning the federal commitment to investing in this infrastructure, the federal government is only spending $2.3 billion on High Speed Rail in the next year instead of $4 billion that it promised, yesterday's rally was upbeat. 

(Drew Reed is usually our volunteer Long Beach writer.  However, he volunteered to cover the CTA's rail transportation symposium in Long Beach that took place Monday and Tuesday.  Here is a review of Monday's coverage.  Tuesday's will come tomorrow.  With the exception of the above graphic, all images are by Drew Reed.)

The push for dedicated U.S. high-speed rail funding began anew yesterday with the launch of a campaign aimed at securing $4 billion from Congress for next year's projects -- but hours before that event, federal and state transport officials joined private-sector players for a discussion that highlighted the political challenges facing successful development of fast inter-city rail networks.