By now it’s become clear that, despite his public claims, Senator Alan Lowenthal is not really a high speed rail supporter. He consistently undermines the project in the press with his misleading and baseless claims that HSR ridership stats “don’t pass the smell test” (a reference to his apparent belief that nobody will ever ride [...]

Curt Pringle was only recently made chairman of the California High Speed Rail Authority’s board of directors, but his term on the board runs out in December. It sounds like he wants another term: And, while not specifically saying he wants to keep the job, Pringle said: “I have every intention to make sure the [...]

It was a long and busy weekend in LA at the California Democratic Party convention, which for me included a trip to the RailPAC meeting at MTA headquarters on Saturday morning. It was a very good and productive meeting, and I’ll say more about it in an upcoming post. I’m also playing catch-up on a [...]

Yesterday we took a look at the debate over private funding for HSR, and determined that while there are serious issues to consider with how private funding is used, there doesn’t seem to be any real doubt that private funding would indeed materialize. That hasn’t stopped HSR deniers from peddling their misinformation to the media, [...]