November 2021 - Newshacker

Let’s Get California High-Speed Rail Built

Welcome to Infrastructure Spotlight, a new series on Newshacker Blog examining major U.S. infrastructure projects in-depth. Today, we’re jumping back over to the West Coast to talk about California High-Speed Rail, a project that has long been in the works.

In November 2008, voters approved Proposition 1A. Thus was the birth of high-speed rail in California: the bill approved $9.95 billion in funding to the California High-Speed Rail Authority to link the San Francisco Bay Area to Los Angeles via the Central Valley, with future extensions to San Diego and Sacramento.

Why Boston Must Build the North-South Rail Link

Welcome to Infrastructure Spotlight, a new series on Newshacker Blog examining major U.S. infrastructure projects in-depth. Today, we’ll be talking about a proposed project in the Boston area: the North-South Rail Link.

Like many cities in the Northeast, Boston’s commuter rail system is fractured into two halves due to a legacy of the system: the commuter rail system was built by multiple companies that were directly competing with each other. As a result, all of Boston’s commuter trains terminate at either one of the city’s downtown terminals: North Station or South Station, with no direct rail connection between the two train stations.

Virginia Gubernatorial Election Points to 2022 Red Wave

On Tuesday, off-year elections were held in various states, with the most notable races being the Virginia gubernatorial election and the New Jersey gubernatorial election. A number of other special elections were also held to fill congressional vacancies, and multiple cities also held mayoral elections. Notably, Republicans swept into power in Virginia, and New Jersey’s incumbent Democratic governor was just a hair’s smidge away from losing to a Republican. Yet, in what seemed like a great year for Republicans, a number of progressive Democrats won races in local elections.