California

The Reason Foundation has released our "Xpress West" (formerly "DesertXpress") analysis. This high speed rail train would run from Victorville (90 miles from downtown Los Angeles) to Las Vegas. Promoters predict high ridership and profits. They are seeking a subsidized federal loan of more than $5.5 billion, which is within the discretionary authority of the US Department of Transportation to fund.

Our analysis concludes the following:  read more »

Decidedly, early June has not been the best of times for the California high-speed rail project.  read more »

I’m back from a California trip – beautiful state, beautiful weather, completely dysfunctional government.  For example, even with massive fiscal problems it’s still trying to build a vastly expensive high-speed rail line from San Francisco to San Diego. On a related note, a private group is exploring building a Houston-Dallas HSR line with no subsidies of any kind. I’m totally okay with private efforts.  read more »

Differing views on the future of California urban areas are the subject of a California Senate Republican Caucus report (Briefing Report: Attack On The Suburbs: SB 375 And Its Effects On The Housing Market).  read more »

When I moved to Los Angeles 30 years ago, Ocean Front Walk in Venice Beach looked like a hippie parody.  It had a counter-cultural veneer, but didn’t rate as an authentic bohemian hot spot.

Contrast, for example, with New York’s East Village with its revolutionaries, junkies, artists and various iconoclasts living side-by-side.  read more »

A new strategy is beginning to emerge toward California’s embattled high-speed rail venture. The strategy is designed to rescue the project from a possible defeat at the hands of the state legislature, gain friends and supporters among local transportation agencies, win converts among independent analysts and turn around a largely skeptical public.  read more »

Seldom has public opinion and expert judgment been more unified than in its opposition to  the California high-speed rail project.    The project has been criticized by its own Peer Review Group, the Legislative Analyst's Office (LAO), the California State Auditor,  the State Treasurer and a group of independent  experts  (Enthoven, Grindley, Warren et al.).  In addition, the bullet train has come under severe criticism by influential state legislators and  by members of the state's congressional delegation.  read more »

Kevin Drum of Mother Jones reports on the highly questionable "cost of alternatives" that has been routinely repeated by proponents of the California high speed rail project, in an article entitled "California High Speed Rail Even More Ridiculous than Before."  read more »

Like many other observers, we have found the California High-Speed Rail Peer Review Group to have made a convincing case for a fresh look at the feasibility of the California high-speed rail project. The group's report was issued as eleven House Democrats – eight from California – joined an earlier request from twelve Republican House members for an independent GAO investigation of the embattled project.   read more »

As befits this time of year, our thoughts turn to the events that await us in the days ahead. Putting aside the major imponderable — the outcome of the presidential and congressional elections that inevitably will impact the federal transportation program —what can the transportation community expect in 2012? Will Congress muster the will to enact a multi-year surface transportation reauthorization? Or will the legislation fall victim to election year paralysis? What other significant transportation-related developments lie ahead in the new year?  read more »