2025 has been a challenging year for many, dominated by the Trump administration’s attacks on civil rights, democracy, and the environment, from ICE kidnappings that suppressed transit ridership to the administration’s attacks on emissions regulations, transit funding, and renewable energy. But despite the difficult environment, Californians for Electric Rail has Read more…
The SB 125 Transit Transformation Task Force (TTTF) is poised to adopt a final report on September 30, 2025. The State Legislature intended for the report from the TTTF to serve as the basis of legislative and administrative actions to reform transit to better achieve the state’s goals of reducing Read more…
Little more than hot air behind Caltrans’ justification for $207 million in unproven hydrogen trains Over the past few years California has demonstrated remarkable coordination across many areas of state government to develop the market for hydrogen, driven largely by ARCHES, California’s hydrogen hub, a public-private partnership run out of Read more…
California High Speed Rail does have cost issues, but it’s not an impossible boondoggle, and slashing funding will not fix things. On Thursday, February 20th, Trump Department of Transportation head Sean Duffy visited Union Station in Los Angeles to announce he will be auditing California High Speed Rail. This audit Read more…
We need to improve project delivery in order to deliver service upgrades to transit riders at an acceptable cost and timeline. One way to achieve this is through service-led planning. The State Rail Plan identifies service-led planning and project delivery of organizational, electronic and concrete improvements as critical to delivering Read more…
Californians for Electric Rail envisions a California where communities around the state have access to fast, frequent, reliable and clean regional and intercity rail service. To deliver on that vision we need more investment but we also need to get better at building the necessary electrification and other infrastructure. In Read more…
On September 27, 2024 Governor Gavin Newsom signed AB 2503, which exempts electric rail projects within existing rights-of-way for passenger service from review under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). Based on the experience of years of delay via CEQA lawsuit Caltrain experienced and the aborted attempts by other agencies Read more…
Last time, we got an overview of how the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), can affect rail projects in general. In this entry in the series on how CEQA holds back clean, transformative electric rail, we’ll do a deep dive into how CEQA litigation caused serious delays to Caltrain electrification, Read more…
California needs significant reductions in transportation-related emissions to meet its climate targets. Those reductions need to come from both the vehicles themselves as well as mode shift – reducing the number of Vehicles Miles Traveled (VMT). Rail electrification is a policy that accomplishes both goals: it converts diesel-spewing trips to Read more…