Discourse for all interested in all things air-quality related
Extra-orbital space travel – only a handful of persons can ever say they’ve done that. A few more can lay claim to flying in sub-orbital aircraft at faster-than-sound speeds. So given the numbers that have a fascination with this sort of thing, the expectation is reasonable that if supersonic (or close to it) evacuated or … Read more
The below Oct. 15, 2020 news release is from the California High-Speed Rail Authority. The California High-Speed Rail Authority (Authority) today released its 2020 Sustainability Report: Building Resilience. The annual report details ongoing efforts to advance the nation’s largest and greenest infrastructure project and reduce greenhouse gas emissions in transportation. In the past year, the … Read more
In video footage, CBS transportation reporter Kris Van Cleave on special assignment covering a topic that I think gets too little attention in the grand scheme of things, high-speed railroading and high-speed trains, spoke with authorities in their particular areas of expertise on some of the finer points regarding Amtrak’s new Acela trains which the … Read more
The below Sept. 10, 2020 news release is from the California High-Speed Rail Authority. Today [Sept. 10, 2020], the California High-Speed Rail Authority’s (Authority) Board of Directors unanimously approved the Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Report/Environmental Impact Statement (EIR/EIS) for the approximately 50-mile project alignment section referred to as the “Central Valley Wye” part of the … Read more
By the end of the year, about 70,000 route-miles of railroad track in the United States are mandated to be outfitted with a fully functioning Positive Train Control or PTC system. Both in 2015 and 2018, expressed PTC mandates for those two years were not met. Will it be the same regarding the 2020 deadline? … Read more
The XpressWest high-speed rail project, to connect Nevada’s Las Vegas to California’s Victorville and beyond, has an anticipated winter 2020-’21 construction start date, with a ’23-’24 projected begin operations/service date. The line, some 180 miles long – 135 miles of which will be in the Golden State – has a $5 billion building-cost estimate. XpressWest … Read more
There are those who rail against California’s bullet-train project asserting that the system will require subsidization. They argue that there isn’t enough available capital even to fund construction of 119 miles of line between Shafter and Madera, much less build 520 miles from San Francisco to Los Angeles and Anaheim (the complete Phase 1 portion). … Read more
“Dedicated high-speed rail dollars kept in the Valley will simply go farther,” the Air Quality Matters blog post of Jun. 14th, showed how $4.2 billion in state rail bonds, in being applied to construction work in California’s San Joaquin Valley, could be a tremendous asset where hiring, stimulating local economies and improving area and state … Read more
This June 16th marks five years since construction on California’s statewide high-speed rail program first began. There are now 4,000 laborers doing bullet-train-related building work in the Golden State’s Central Valley at over three dozen sites. That level of commitment notwithstanding, there are those who think that they know what’s best regarding where yet-unspent dedicated … Read more
When the Railroad Revitalization and Regulatory Reform Act was authorized in 1976 (also known as the 4R Act) it had been 10 years since the High Speed Ground Transportation Act of 1965, introduced by Congress, passed. Interest seemed strong through the 1980s and ’90s but funding for and forward momentum in this direction failed to … Read more