RailPAC: Rail Passenger Association of CA & NV

The State of California owns the locomotives and cars used on the San Joaquins, has paid with local governments for improvements or replacements of the stations on the route and paid for Amtrak’s maintenance base in Oakland which services the San Joaquins. And Amtrak thinks the San Joaquins are their trains? January 3, 2012 The…

Speed is attractive on any travel mode. Higher speeds can lead to greater productivity. But ridership is also determined by other factors such as price, comfort, safety, convenience and the number of markets served. Speed can be very expensive which can make the price of the service uncompetitive. By-passing towns to improve running times will…

This is from testimony by retired Republican Congressman and current Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood given on December 6th before the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. It didn’t get much media coverage… The effort to derail the California HSR Project is part of a larger partisan effort to derail the presidency of President Obama by…

Total public spending on transport and water infrastructure has fallen steadily since the 1960s and now stands at 2.4% of GDP. Europe, by contrast, invests 5% of GDP in its infrastructure, while China is racing into the future at 9%. America’s spending as a share of GDP has not come close to European levels for…

Duh, they are just now noticing that building a 220 miles per hour railroad is expensive? While speeds of up to 220 miles per hour is a reasonable long term goal, first we need to look at getting service up to 125 miles per hour in California in the near future. Full funding won’t be…