As we noted in January, costs for Jerry Brown’s vaunted high-speed rail project jumped by $2.8 billion to $10.6 billion, just for the stretch from Madera to Bakersfield. “It’s horrifying when you look at the amount of money we’re going to have to reinvest to make this program work,” exclaimed bullet-train board member Ernest…
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On Monday December 18, the Amtrak Cascades 501 headed out on its inaugural trip on a new route in Washington state when it ran off the tracks near DuPont, sending 13 cars into traffic on busy Interstate 5 below. The train carried 86 people and at this writing at least three are dead and…
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Back in 2001, terrorists flew U.S. airliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, killing some 3,000 people and causing countless billions in damage. According to an investigation by Kelly Carr and Jaimi Dowdell of the Boston Globe, the Federal Aviation Administration listed two of those airliners still active four years later in…
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In California’s capital of Sacramento, rapid transit has been in terrible shape, but not for lack of spending on management. As we noted, after hiring Mike Wiley as manager, the RT district plunged into financial distress, tapping reserve accounts to balance its budget and raising fares 10 percent. Though a major bust as transit…
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Two years ago, California’s Legislative Analyst learned that 3,500 Caltrans engineers were doing little more than sitting at their desks and sought to eliminate those positions. Caltrans bosses cried foul and so did Bruce Blanning, executive director of Professional Engineers in California Government. As the union boss told reporters the Legislative Analyst was “childish,”…
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California’s vaunted bullet train has yet to carry a single passenger but it has managed to make the news. As it turns out, the state’s High-Speed Rail Authority offered a contract extension of $3 million on a noncompetitive basis. In other words, it was a no-bid sweetheart deal. That emerged in a new report…
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The forced removal of Mr. David Dao from a United Airlines flight has touched off outrage around the world, justifiably so. The airline should have adjudicated the overbooking issue before the boarding process, and as UA CEO Oscar Munoz said, nobody should ever be treated that way. The video of the removal grabbed worldwide…
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Last December, Amtrak train number 527 approached a track switch near Davis, California, where the speed limit was 40 mph. The engineer roared through at 78 mph, jerking the train violently and causing five passengers to suffer injuries. The Federal Railroad Administration let Amtrak conduct its own investigation, and as one passenger told reporters,…
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Bridge tolls are high in the Bay Area but rapid transit bosses are worried that they are not quite high enough. As Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross note in the San Francisco Chronicle, a $3.5 billion bond approval has BART bosses panting for another $1.5 billion in toll hikes on the area’s seven state-owned…
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In his State of the State address, California governor Jerry Brown went off on President Trump with unusual fury, but he also extended an olive branch of sorts. California has “roads, tunnels and railroads” that the president “could help us with,” Brown said, and that will “create good-paying American jobs.” Before he gets on…
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