A marathon 6-hour joint Senate hearing on high-speed rail was held yesterday, May 15, with a surprise visit by Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg. The LAO, State Auditor, and 3 members of the Peer Review Group attended. Topics included the lack of a management team, federal strings and unstable funding sources. Although the Senators [...]

At the High-Speed Rail Authority’s board meeting last week, the Board and public were told that under the Phase 1 Blended Plan the travel time between SF and LA could meet the Prop 1A requirement of 2 hours and 40 minutes. A slide in this presentation reinforced the statement.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
However, in the supporting documents for the [...]

The highly anticipated Revised Business Plan for the California High Speed Rail project will be approved by the Authority at their board meeting in less than 48 hours but the Authority has still not posted the supporting documents for this plan.
CARRD has been urging the Authority to release this information since last week and in [...]

There have been at least two recent media reports describing substantive changes to the upcoming 2012 Business Plan.
We look forward to seeing how public input was incorporated to the plan.
Given the media reports on apparent substantive changes, CARRD is recommending that the Authority consider issuing a second draft plan to give both the public and [...]

CARRD send the California High Speed Rail Authority an email today asking them to defer their board vote on the “Grapevine” alignment.
Our message said:
“We are writing to urge the Board to defer a decision until additional analyses on these issues are provided:
1) Express route west of Bakersfield -  Project EIR work has shown that the impacts [...]

We’re pleased to announce that Elizabeth Alexis of CARRD has been asked to testify at the hearing in D.C. next week.
The committee staff has produced a Briefing Memo that gives an excellent history of the project and has some relevant updated numbers. For those new to the project, this is a MUST READ!
The Briefing Memo [...]

The ridership model is arguably one of the most important components of the recent business plan presented by the California High Speed Rail Authority.
So, how conservative are the ridership forecasts?
Here is a short report looking simply at the price of gas assumed in the model.
What did we find?  Well, do you think $40 per gallon [...]

CARRD sent a letter to the California High Speed Rail Authority Board and Chairman today outlining our legal concerns on two important issues: the Initial Construction Segment and the Funding Plan.
We are wary of intent to build an Initial Construction Segment (ICS) that does not specifically have an Environmental Impact Report (EIR) associated with it [...]

The California High Speed Rail Authority submitted a number of reports to the California legislature on October 14, 2011.  These documents provide some hints as to what will be in their 2011 Business Plan.
CARRD’s comments on these documents are here.
CHSRA: Revenue guarantees and alternative funding plans
CHSRA: Feasibility of “shared track” solution in the Bay Area
CHSRA: [...]

Read all the progress reports here.
Every month, Parsons Brinckerhoff (PB) must submit a lengthy progress report to the California High Speed Rail Authority detailing everything that is going on with the project. The reports cover budgeting issues, discuss what work was done and what issues have arisen.
PB is the program manager for the California High [...]