Passenger Bus, Rail and Motorcoach Industry News

Critics said they could harm the quality of the Los Angeles-to-San Francisco high-speed rail project. The agency tentatively selected a team to build a segment of track even though it had the lowest technical score. The team had the lowest-cost bid, at just under $1 billion.

Draws upon empirical data from proprietary database of terrorist and serious criminal attacks against public surface transportation and from reviews of selected HSR systems, including onsite observations.

Extensions were needed because of delays. The expense was anticipated and budgeted according to guidelines approved by voters under Proposition 1A, project officials said.

The project manager of Northern Lights Express, a proposed high-speed rail line connecting Minneapolis and Duluth, led an environmental assessment open house and said the project is gaining traction.

Public policy and economics experts from UCLA and China’s Tsinghua University found that high-speed rail fuels real estate booms, reduces commuting times for those traveling to big cities, eases congestion in those cities and gives smaller towns more access to metropolitan hubs.

Half of the bond money would go to the first segment of the line. The project still needs to weather lawsuits over the next couple of months. The lawsuit rulings could stall the funds.

Will clarify the timeline for commuter train electrification between San Francisco and San Jose. The CHSRA board of directors approved an MOU with the Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board to enhance the rail tracks to accommodate future high-speed rail service.

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan and Sen. Jeff Sessions, the top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, claimed that the project is “costly, wasteful and risky.” ExpressWest’s founder/CEO and the National Association of Railroad Passengers both spoke out to defend the project.

A Sacramento County judge upheld the California High-Speed Rail Authority's environmental-review process for the controversial rail project in spite of an effort by Peninsula-area cities to stop it.

A new report said that 73 Wisconsin supply chain companies, most of which are manufacturers, have the potential to gain production and jobs from work to build high-speed passenger rail lines across the U.S.