The Deutsche Bahn AG is the national railway company of Germany, and a state-owned enterprise under the control of the German government. Headquartered in the Bahntower in Berlin, it is a joint-stock company (AG) and the largest railway company in the world.
The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (LACMTA), branded as Metro, is the county agency that plans, operates, and coordinates funding for most of the public transportation system in Los Angeles County, California, the most populated county in the United States.
The San Joaquins is a passenger train service operated by Amtrak in California's San Joaquin Valley. Seven daily round trips run between its southern terminus at Bakersfield and Stockton, with onward service to Sacramento and Oakland. For Fiscal year 2025, two additional trips to Sacramento will be added.
California High-Speed Rail (CAHSR) is a publicly funded high-speed rail system being developed in California by the California High-Speed Rail Authority. Phase 1, about 494 miles (795 km) long, is planned to run from San Francisco to Los Angeles and Anaheim via the Central Valley, and is partially funded and under construction. A proposed Phase 2 would extend the system north to Sacramento and south to San Diego, for a total of 776 miles (1,249 km). The project was authorized by a 2008 statewide ballot to connect the state's major urban areas and reduce intercity travel times. Phase 1 targets a nonstop travel time of 2 hours and 40 minutes from San Francisco to Los Angeles, compared to about nine hours on the existing Amtrak San Joaquins.
Quentin Lewis Kopp is an American attorney and politician. He served as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and in the California State Senate. Kopp ran unsuccessfully for mayor of San Francisco in 1979 against Dianne Feinstein. Kopp advocated for the extension of BART to SFO which was completed in 2003.
Plans for high-speed rail in the United States date back to the High-Speed Ground Transportation Act of 1965. Various state and federal proposals have followed. Despite being one of the world's first countries to get high-speed trains, it failed to spread. Definitions of what constitutes high-speed rail vary, including a range of speeds over 110 mph (180 km/h) and dedicated rail lines. Inter-city rail with top speeds between 90 and 125 mph is sometimes referred to in the United States as higher-speed rail.
Merced station is an intercity rail station located in Merced, California, United States. The station is served by seven daily round trips of the San Joaquins and is a transfer point between trains and Yosemite Area Regional Transportation System (YARTS) buses serving Yosemite National Park. Merced station has side platforms adjacent to the tracks of the BNSF Railway Stockton Subdivision.
The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), established in 1975, is a New York State public-benefit corporation, located in Albany, New York, with regional offices in New York City, Buffalo, and West Valley.
San Francisco 4th and King Street station, also known as the Caltrain Depot, is a train station in the SoMa district of San Francisco, California. It is presently the northern terminus of the Caltrain commuter rail line serving the San Francisco Peninsula and Santa Clara Valley. It is also the eastern terminus of the N Judah and E Embarcadero, as well as a stop along the T Third Street of the Muni network. The station is additionally the projected terminus for the first phase of the California High-Speed Rail project and a station once Phase 2 is completed.
Laura Friedman is an American politician and former film producer serving in the California State Assembly and a candidate for California's 30th congressional district. A member of the Democratic Party, she represents the 44th Assembly district, encompassing the cities of Glendale, Burbank, the unincorporated community of La Crescenta-Montrose, and northern portions of Los Angeles, including Sunland-Tujunga, Shadow Hills, Lake View Terrace, La Tuna Canyon, Toluca Lake, Valley Village, Studio City and Sherman Oaks.
The California State Transportation Agency (CalSTA) is a state cabinet-level agency with the government of California. The agency is responsible for transportation-related departments within the state. The agency was created under governor Jerry Brown in 2013 after the previous Business, Transportation and Housing Agency's portfolio underwent reorganization.
The construction of the California High-Speed Rail system is an undertaking by the California High-Speed Rail Authority. The project is expected to span about 800 miles (1,300 km) and will be completed in two phases:
The California High-Speed Rail Authority was established in 1996 after decades of advocacy for building a high speed rail system in California. The passage of Proposition 1A in 2008, followed by the awarding of federal stimulus funds in 2010, established the initial funding for the California High-Speed Rail system. Construction contracts began to be awarded in 2013, and the groundbreaking ceremony for initial construction was held on January 6, 2015.
Fresno is a California High-Speed Rail station being constructed in Fresno, California. The first purpose-built high speed rail station in the United States, it is part of the system's Initial Construction Segment. The facility is located in Downtown Fresno at H Street between Fresno and Tulare Streets, and is being built as an expansion of the adjacent historic Fresno Southern Pacific Depot. It is one block from the former Fulton Street Mall.
Merced station is a proposed California High-Speed Rail station in Merced, California, located in Downtown Merced. The originally proposed site was to have been located at ground level on Martin Luther King Jr. Way near the interchange with Route 99/59, placing it about 7 blocks south from the existing Merced Amtrak station. The station was initially intended to be the northern terminus of the system's Initial Construction Segment. An alternative location for a fully elevated station proposed by the City of Merced and other stakeholders, 8 blocks to the west-northwest along 15th Street, between O Street and R Street was approved after a supplemental environmental review. The high-speed rail line will run on the south side of the Union Pacific Railroad right-of-way.
The California High-Speed Rail system will be built in two major phases. Phase I, about 520 miles (840 km) long using high-speed rail through the Central Valley, will connect San Francisco to Los Angeles. In Phase 2, the route will be extended in the Central Valley north to Sacramento, and from east through the Inland Empire and then south to San Diego. The total system length will be about 800 miles (1,300 km) long. Phase 2 currently has no timeline for completion.
The Caltrain Modernization Program (CalMod), sometimes referred to as the Caltrain Electrification Project, was a $2.44 billion project which added a positive train control (PTC) system and electrified the main line of the U.S. commuter railroad Caltrain, which serves cities in the San Francisco Peninsula and Silicon Valley. The electrification included installation of a 25 kV catenary system over the double-tracked line from San Francisco to San Jose, and acquisition of new rolling stock, consisting of Stadler KISS double-decker electric multiple units (EMU). Caltrain is transitioning from its legacy push-pull trains hauled by diesel-electric locomotives, most of which have been in service since 1985.
The Portal, also known as the Downtown Rail Extension (DTX), is a planned second phase of the Salesforce Transit Center. When complete, it will extend the Caltrain Peninsula Corridor commuter rail line from its current northern terminus at 4th and King via a 1.3-mile (2.1 km) tunnel. The new terminus will be near the Financial District and will provide intermodal connections to BART, Muni, Transbay AC Transit buses, and long-distance buses. In addition, the California High Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) plans to use DTX and the Caltrain-owned Peninsula Corridor for service on the CHSRA San Francisco–San Jose segment. The Caltrain Modernization Program (CalMod), which included electrification of the line and acquisition of electrified rolling stock, was a prerequisite, since the former diesel locomotives were not suitable for use in a tunnel.
Valley Link is a proposed 26-mile-long (42 km) commuter rail service in Northern California, which seeks to connect the rapid transit Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system in the San Francisco Bay Area with the northern San Joaquin Valley via the Tri-Valley region. Since 1997, BART's Blue Line's eastern terminus is at Dublin/Pleasanton station on the border of Dublin and Pleasanton. Valley Link seeks to extend rail service east from here into the northern San Joaquin Valley over Altamont Pass, which would help alleviate traffic congestion and reduce greenhouse gas emissions on Interstate 580 (I-580). The project resulted from various failed proposals to extend the Blue Line east to Livermore.
In addition to the direct reduction in travel times the HSR project will produce, there are also economic and environmental impacts of the high-speed rail system. These were also specifically noted in Proposition 1A at the time the project sought authorization from the voters of the state in 2008. The anticipated benefits apply both generally to the state overall, as well as to the regions the train will pass through, and to the areas immediately around the train stations.
