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California High-Speed Rail Advances

https://sf.streetsblog.org/2020/09/2...rail-advances/

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- Everybody wants to get back to ‘normal’ after the COVID pandemic passes, right? But as Andy Kunz, President and CEO of the US High-speed Rail Association, pointed out during a Friday webinar on the future of transportation, ‘normal’ sucked. Did we forget, he asked, how a few months ago everyone was stewing almost daily in mind-numbing traffic and rotting in long airport lines? “Do we really want to return to the ‘normals’ of climate change, high cost, and low mobility?” --- His organization wants a 1950’s-style Federal Highway Act, just like the one that built the interstate highway system, only this time dedicated to building a nationwide network of clean, electric, high-speed rail tracks. “We envision a 17,000-mile network with state-of-the-art trains that travel faster than 200 mph.” And thanks to decades of political sparring against entrenched highway and petroleum interests, the keystone of that vision is finally underway. 118 miles are under construction in the Central Valley right now,” said Brian Kelly, CEO of the California High-Speed Rail Authority.

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