California's 2018 State Rail Plan Released
"Rail is a key part of the solution for addressing California's transportation challenges. In this Rail Plan, we lay out the goals and investment strategies necessary in both the short and long-term for improving access, mobility, and efficiency for both our passenger and freight rail systems," said Laurie Berman, director of Caltrans.
Caltrans, the California Department of Transportation, has released the 2018 State Rail Plan, describing it as "a bold vision for state rail" that aims to boost the economy and improve safety statewide during the next 20 years.
"Rail is a key part of the solution for addressing California's transportation challenges. In this Rail Plan, we lay out the goals and investment strategies necessary in both the short and long-term for improving access, mobility, and efficiency for both our passenger and freight rail systems, while also making a major contribution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions related to the transportation sector," said Laurie Berman, director of the agency.
With a vision to increase passenger rail travel by 92 million passenger miles per day, the 2018 Rail Plan presents a plan for an integrated system that will allow passengers to easily and efficiently transfer from local transit services to regional, intercity, and future high-speed rail. The outcomes described in the plan will help California achieve its ambitious GHG emission reduction targets, boost the state economy, and potentially eliminate 250 fatalities and 19,000 transportation-related injuries per year by 2040.
The passenger vision will create a coordinated, statewide travel system to enhance multimodal access for residents across the state. The vision will allow people to travel seamlessly across urban, suburban, and rural areas of the state with more trains to more places more often; save time with significantly faster trips; and enjoy the journey on modern, safe, clean, comfortable trains. The freight vision provides a customer-focused system that will eliminate rail freight bottlenecks on transcontinental trade corridors by investing in dedicated rail freight capacity and passenger improvements that support rail freight movement. The Rail Plan is available at www.californiastaterailplan.com.