Other People's Rail: Amtrak, commuter rail, rapid transit news & views outside New England

Newsom to propose extending a landmark California climate law​

Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday proposed a 15-year extension of California’s signature cap-and-trade system for greenhouse gases — a cornerstone of the state’s climate policies and a reliable revenue generator.
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Newsom’s plan would also address another California initiative under attack from the Trump administration. Specifically, it would convert the proportion of revenue that funds the state’s hot-button high-speed rail project from a 25 percent carve-out to a guaranteed minimum funding level of $1 billion annually.
 
Lots of progress now on the purple line. This line is very important imo because its one of the first radial transit lines being built and if successful should have knock on effects for other cities to build their own. We see nyc has the interborough express planned as well and projects like these will give people the opportunity to ride them for themselves and see the benefit as well as cities to look at the data and ways they improve their networks after being built. I feel like its sort of flying under the radar, but is one of the most important projects right now and its nice to see how far along it is now.

 
In 2024, only 48% of Amtrak Cascades trains arrived within the defined on-time performance window of 10 minutes. The bill lays out a long-range vision to bring that number up to 88% – and keep it there while expanding service.

HB 1837 sets a service target of at least 14 round trips per day between Seattle and Portland and a minimum of five round trips per day between Seattle and Vancouver, British Columbia. This would more than double service, as Cascades schedule currently tabs six daily round trips to Portland and two daily round trips between Seattle and Vancouver.
 
This line is very important imo because its one of the first radial transit lines being built and if successful should have knock on effects for other cities to build their own.
I assume you meant non-radial, which is indeed exciting, but there have been examples of this for a few decades now in Los Angeles. Both the Metro (C and K lines) and MetroLink regional rail (IE-OC line) have at least one line that does not run through the core. I'm definitely a fan, and sometimes think our Urban Ring idea in Boston would work better as a couple of cross town lines, rather than a unified ring.
 
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I assume you meant non-radial, which is indeed exciting, but there have been examples of this for a few decades now in Los Angeles. Both the Metro (C and K lines) and MetroLink regional rail (IE-OC line) have at least one line that does not run through the core. I'm definitely a fan, and sometimes think our Urban Ring idea in Boston would work better as a couple of cross town lines, rather than a unified ring.
Yea LA’s metro is being assembled to have many cross town lines which goes very good with the way that LA is laid out. What I more meant to say was that the purple line is going to be one of the first new (partial) circle lines built in the US and hopefully that encourages more to be built in the future like the ibx in nyc or the circle line that was proposed in chicago a few years ago.
 

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