Fixing California- Part four: The transportation revolution

By Edward Ring
07/12/2021
Editor’s note: This is the fourth article in a nine-part series on how to fix California. Read the first article in the series here, the second here, and the third here. Reading California’s “Transportation Plan 2050” is a depressing journey into groupthink. Like everything coming out of the one-party bureaucracy, it is the bland product of...

TAGS: "bullet train", Edward Ring, Edward Ring, fixing california, traffic, Transportation

Listen: Analyzing deeply California’s superficiality

By Editorial Staff
06/18/2021
A new episode of the Radio Free California podcast is out! The latest episode of National Review’s Radio Free California podcast is out, featuring CPC’s Will Swaim and David Bahnsen. In this week’s episode, they discuss Governor Gavin Newsom’s game-show theatrics aimed at increasing vaccination rates across the state, Joe Biden’s weird affection for California’s...

TAGS: "bullet train", David Bahnsen, economy, Gavin Newsom, Joe Biden, National Review, Podcast, Radio Free California, Scott Wiener, Will Swaim

Why Jerry Brown bears considerable blame for PG&E’s deadly incompetence

By Chris Reed
03/02/2020
When Gov. Jerry Brown left office in January 2019, most of the reviews of his second eight-year stint as leader of the nation’s richest, most populous state were effusive. Citing his restoration of fiscal stability after the Capitol chaos seen in the last three years of the Schwarzenegger administration, Brown biographer Narda Zacchino declared he...

TAGS: "bullet train", California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), Chris Reed, Jerry Brown, PG&E

California officials knew all along bullet train wouldn’t attract investors

By Chris Reed
01/27/2020
After being discussed for decades, a privately funded 170-mile high-speed rail link through the desert between Las Vegas and Victorville — 90 miles east-northeast of Los Angeles — could get final approval in coming weeks from the Federal Railroad Administration. After that happens, the California and Nevada state governments are expected to give final approval...

TAGS: "bullet train", Arnold Schwarzenegger, California High-Speed Rail Authority, Chris Reed, Federal Railroad Administration, Gavin Newsom, Jerry Brown

Why Aren't Unions Fighting California's Bullet Train Boondoggle?

By Edward Ring
11/24/2015
Back in 2008, voters in California approved Prop. 1, a statewide initiative to spend, “$9 billion for building a new high-speed railroad between San Francisco and Los Angeles.” Total cost, $9.5 billion. Remember that? Quoting further from the original initiative’s ballot language: “Bond Costs. The costs of these bonds would depend on interest rates in effect...

TAGS: "bullet train", California high speed rail, California Labor Federation

Desalination Plants vs. Bullet Trains and Pensions

By Edward Ring
04/07/2015
Current policy solutions enacted to address California’s water crisis provide an object lesson in how corruption masquerading as virtue is impoverishing the general population to enrich a handful of elites. Instead of building freeways, expanding ports, restoring bridges and aqueducts, and constructing dams, desalination plants, and power stations, California’s taxpayers are pouring tens of billions...

TAGS: "bullet train", California drought, cost of living, desalination, high speed rail, pension funds