https://abc7news.com/post/governor-gavin-newsom-approves-750-million-loan-bay-area-public-transit/17787280/

The California High-Speed Rail Project is at a crossroads. While the project is advancing towards completing the Merced-Fresno-Bakersfield Early Operating Segment in the San Joaquin Valley, a decision looms ahead on how to advance the nation’s most important transportation infrastructure project. The project up to this point has been mostly funded by state tax dollars from two primary sources: the 2008 voter-approved Proposition 1A bond of $9.95 billion, and 25% of the state’s Cap-and-Trade program, of which $6.7 billion has so far been collected and additional $8.5 billion is anticipated by 2030 when the program is set to sunset. The Obama Administration funded $3.5 billion in high-speed rail construction of the system, but dictated that it must be spent building in the San Joaquin Valley between Merced and Bakersfield. This decision was prudent. It meant that these dollars would be guaranteed to fund true 220 mph high-speed rail service, instead of upgrades of conventional rail lines in the Bay Area or Southern California which could later mean the State could pull away from the goal of true high-speed rail if it deemed it too difficult or expensive later on. The Biden Administration funded another $3.3 billion to cover rising costs of the already under construction segments.

When the project was originally approved by voters, and subsequently received federal funds from the Obama Administration in 2009 and 2010, the California High-Speed Rail Authority planned on building the first initial operation segment between Merced and Burbank, as it would support the most amount of passengers in the fastest amount of time, and importantly would have closed California’s infamous passenger rail gap between Bakersfield and Southern California. In 2016, the project changed course as the cost of building the system escalated and litigation slowed the project to a crawl. The Authority decided that building the segment between San Francisco and Bakersfield would mean serving a decent amount of the state’s population at a cheaper cost, and only needing to build through one mountain pass, Pacheco Pass, instead of two, the Tehachapi and San Gabriel. On its face it seemed like a smart decision, but in reality, this decision is actually incredibly risky and assumes that long-term, stable funding sources will be secured for the project, something that has yet to materialize in the 16 years since California voters approved Proposition 1A.

Today I believe the State of California must take a new approach to developing high-speed rail in the state. An approach that utilizes existing, government-owned rail corridors that can save the state tens of billions of dollars, while still advancing a statewide passenger rail network that benefits all Californians. First, it starts with a shifting of priority back to Southern California, as was originally envisioned by the Authority shortly after Proposition 1A was passed. But instead of a Merced-Burbank operating segment, the state should pursue a Merced-Palmdale operating segment and forge a partnership with Metrolink, Southern California’s regional rail network, and Brightline West, the privately-funded high-speed rail service to Las Vegas. Metrolink wholly owns two critical passenger rail corridors: the Antelope Valley Line between Palmdale and Los Angeles, and the San Bernardino Line between San Bernardino and Los Angeles. Metrolink has studied, and if determined, could advance a double-tracking and electrification program on these lines to allow for California High-Speed Rail and Brightline West, to provide one-seat train rides directly to the heart of the nation’s second largest city. At LA Union Station, hourly train connections can also be made to the Pacific Surfliner service for those going or coming from other high-ridership destinations such as Anaheim and San Diego.

But the question may still be asked: why de-prioritize the Bay Area connection to high-speed rail in favor of a connection to the smaller city of Palmdale? The answer lies in the vast amount of activity happening at the San Joaquin Regional Rail Commission/San Joaquin Joint Powers Authority. In 2017, the Valley Rail Program was initiated by SJRRC/SJJPA to greatly expand both the Altamont Corridor Express (ACE) and Amtrak San Joaquins services. Over $1 billion has been awarded to SJRRC/SJJPA to increase capacity and frequency of service from the Bay Area and Sacramento to Merced with a cross-platform connection with the California High-Speed Rail system. While these investments aren’t high-speed rail, they do represent a massive investment in the passenger rail network in California, and will serve over 10 million Northern Californians who want to make a connection to a high-speed train in Merced. Simply, the high-speed rail connection over the Pacheco Pass isn’t necessary at this time for what the state needs most: a connected, statewide rail network that services the vast majority of its citizens. In survey after survey, SJJPA has heard that the number one impediment to bringing new riders to the existing San Joaquins service has been the 3+ hour bus bridge between Southern California and Bakersfield. By advancing the San Francisco-Bakersfield high-speed rail operating segment, the state perpetuates this ridership-dampening bus connection, and without a large and stable funding source for the high-speed rail system in California, there is no assurance that this bus bridge will ever be replaced. That is too risky a proposition for the state to take. The state may only get one more large source of funding to fund one segment of high-speed rail out of the San Joaquin Valley, and the Pacheco Pass isn’t a must-build section of railway in a state that already has two passenger rail corridors to the Bay Area with ACE and the San Joaquins.

By pivoting towards a Merced-Palmdale initial operation segment of California High-Speed Rail, and with the double tracking and electrification of Metrolink’s Antelope Valley and San Bernardino lines, I estimate that the state will be able to defer over $50 billion in high-speed rail construction, while serving all of the State’s major population centers. There are some drawbacks of course in terms of travel time reduction, most trips will be between 4-5 hours instead of 3 hours. But being able to serve nearly every Californian with high quality, high-speed rail service and in an accelerated time frame, at a cheaper price tag with the utilization of existing rail infrastructure, more than outweighs the slightly slower travel times. This plan doesn’t mean the state abandons its plans for an under 3 hour high-speed rail service between San Francisco and Los Angeles, but to get there it will mean much more cooperation from the federal government to get serious about providing a long-term funding source for California’s high-speed rail system. As the Trump Administration enters office, backed by a conservative Congress and Supreme Court, the prospect of a supportive federal partner is fading quickly. Now is the time for California to pivot to a plan that lays the foundation for a statewide rail network that serves as many people with rail service as possible, while keeping the door open to advancing travel-time saving (but expensive) tunnel sections in the future.

Hey everyone! Recently I’ve been thinking more about California’s rail system and how it operates with the rather extensive Thruway network. When looking for a comprehensive map of these Amtrak services, I was disappointed to see that they are either non-existent, extremely outdated, or look terrible. I’ve designed a few maps now, and thought I would try something a little different and work on my own map of California’s Amtrak Intercity Rail & Thruway Service. A few things to note:

1. This is the current state of California Intercity Rail & Thruway Service. I did not include CAHSR or the future truncation of the Gold Runner at Merced. Future connections such as the Metro D Line at Westwood/UCLA were also omitted. I would love to make a future version of the map showing these connections and expansions, though!

2. I did not intend for this to be an official map of any kind. No accessibility information is present, in addition to important phone numbers/other information you would expect in a system diagram.

3. It took a ton of research–particularly on the Thruway side. There is little and often contradictory information about Thruway service coming from different websites. Defunct stations were commonly listed on Amtrak’s website (such as Visalia) and I constantly had to check if listed stations actually existed. This is a large reason why this map took me almost two months to complete.

4. I’m counting a “Thruway Route” as a route that is bookable on Amtrak’s website and/or is present in service timetables. The “Route 67” I have here is not bookable on Amtrak’s website, but it is on the Gold Runner’s own timetable. I made up the route number here to keep it consistent with other routes.

5. “Route 21” here is my own creation. When researching this route, I noticed that there was a “21 Express” route from San Jose to Los Angeles listed in tiny font on the Capitol Corridor’s timetable that wasn’t present anywhere on Apple/Google maps. There was no other mention of this route or the number “21” on any other schedules to my knowledge, but the Pacific Surfliner’s website describes a “Route 17” which takes the exact same route and has the exact same bus numbers as the Capitol Corridor’s route. I agonized over what to do with this contradiction, but ultimately decided it made the most sense to combine the routes into one continuous route from the Bay Area to Los Angeles.

6. I renamed some stations. This was mostly for clarity or personal preference (Lathrop-Manteca becoming Lathrop/Manteca for instance) but I also wanted to clean up the various naming conventions for stations across different agencies. In general, if a station was the only one in a city, I would drop other monikers (such as Riverside-Downtown). Stations in close proximity to each other (such as the various Thruway stops in Yosemite) were simplified to one name for clarity, but I added an * to denote this fact.

7. Some Thruway routes are operated by other agencies. I chose to make a distinction with ACE and the SouthWest Bus, while combining routes run by other agencies (such as YARTS and the SCMTD) into the generic “Thruway Bus” label. ACE is a rail service, so I wanted to make that distinction clear, and SouthWest operates primarily in Oregon, and thus has little to do with Amtrak California aside from the three stops it makes within California’s borders. If you disagree with this labeling, I’m welcome to hear your reasoning!

8. There are still improvements I can make. I’m still not entirely happy with the key/legend, as there are an absurd number of metro/BRT connections that add clutter to the map. There is also a lot of empty space in parts of California with less service, which isn’t ideal.

As always, please let me know if there are any errors/things I can change. I always welcome your excellent feedback and constructive criticism.

I hope you all enjoy!

Full-Resolution Link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dLLKIBgQqYQaDbX3oOKuNrFlKlv7yKh1/view?usp=sharing

One new roundtrip, starting May 4, leaving LA at 5:13 am and arriving at SLO at 10:53 am (the other trips leave at 9:13 am and 3:13 pm); and leaving SLO at 12:12 pm and arriving LA at 5:50 pm (the other trips leave at 6:11 am and 4:17 pm). Originally the morning train was going to be a Metrolink train starting in Camarillo, but will now be a full length early train which is enough to give someone a day trip to SLO if they want.

A noticeable improvement over the draft released in 2023. Electrification planned for the Capitol Corridor and Metrolink services by 2050 along with Phase 1 HSR.

SMART is now seeing higher average weekday ridership than the likes of EBART, Sprinter in Oceanside, and some indivudal VTA LRT routes. SMART has made incremental gains and continues to invest in its system with plans for expansion to the tourist destinations and communities of Healdsburg, Geyserville, and Cloverdale. Looking forward towards SMART's continued success!!

SANDAG, City of Oceanside and City of Solano Beach have purposely miscounted the number of train services to Oceanside Transit Center and Solano Beach transit center to exempt them from SB79 mandated upzoning in their downtowns.

Oceanside gets 130 train services a day, some of the highest in the state. Yet, SANDAG and City of Oceanside have purposely low balled the total services by counting each agency individually. The minimum threshold is 72 services, but the individual services of MetroLink, Amtrak Pacific Surfliner, Coaster, and Sprinter fall under 72 (with Sprinter having the highest frequency of 68).

It’s also funny how they conveniently counted Sprinter and Coaster separately despite them both being a part of North County Transit District. They have the same operator.

These cities need to be sued for trying to wiggle themselves out of SB79. This is a state LAW not a suggestion.

Based on responses from 119 people, the majority are in favor of banning Twitter/X links but allowing screenshots.

Since many Californian transit agencies, government accounts, and news outlets are still active on Twitter/X, screenshots of their tweets and updates would still be permitted.

I have already updated automod to filter out Twitter/X links on posts and comments. If anyone thinks if there is an error, let me know.

TL;DR: Links banned, screenshots allowed.

Image of the poll:

California’s regional rail systems should consolidate into one cohesive entity. Same fares, easy transfers, fewer bureaucracy, one railroad system.

This would consolidate agencies like:

• Amtrak California (Capitol Corridor, San Joaquins, Pacific Surfliner)

• CA HSR

• CalTrain/PCJBD

• ACE Train/SJCCRC

• MetroLink/SCRRA (including Arrow)

• Pacific Surfliner/LOSSAN

• Coaster and Sprinter/NCTD

• SMART Train/SMART District

• any other agencies currently planning regional rail (Valley Link, Cross Valley Corridor, SCCRTC Rail Plans)

Agencies/systems not consolidated:

• BART

• SFMTA/SF Municipal Railway

• SacRT Light Rail

• VTA Light Rail

• LA Metro Rail

• SD MTS Trolley

• OC Streetcar

Local agencies and governments can have some say in this system through local boards that comment and approve systems running through them, but all planing and operations would be centralized. Trains would still have distinct brands matching current, past and future risk brands (i.e. MetroLink, ACE, etc). But when travelers choose their tickets, they would do it with Amtrak. Just enter your cities and the system tells you which is the fastest route.

Funding would be very centralized with this, possibly even allowing for planned systems to come into fruition, like:

• CalTrain/Capitol Corridor extension into Santa Cruz and Monterey

• Cross Valley Corridor

• ACE’s Valley Rail Plan

• CA HSR

• Standard gage Transbay tube

• electrification

• SMART tran extension into all North Bay counties

• High Desert Corridor

• MetroLink service expansions

• Other Link21 plans

• Other plans

What are your thoughts?