The American state of California will on Tuesday break ground for the construction of America's first high speed rail network which is set to begin operations in 2020's. More than 50 years after Japan's JR Tokai introduced the Shinkansen which began operations just prior to the 1964 Tokyo Summer Olympics. Since then Japan's Shinkansen network has been expanded south to Kyushu and will reach Hokkaido within the next several years. There have been no fatal accidents involving passengers as a result of equipment malfunction or derailment. At the time of the East Japan earthquake which occurred at 2:46 pm March 11 2011 (Friday) not a single train derailed nor were there any passenger injuries. All Shinkansen tracks are elevated eliminating any need for at grade crossings which can and do cause delays
Finally America has decided to catch up with the Japan of 1964 in 2015.
After years of planning and legal challenges, California's $68-billion bullet train is finally about to break ground.
Work on the first leg of the system gets underway in Fresno, Tuesday, reports CBS San Francisco. Once completed, it will be the nation's first high-speed rail system.
Traveling faster than a Ferrari at 220 miles per hour, the bullet train will slash in half the six-hour drive from northern to southern California. The multibillion-dollar project is due to run bullet trains from the Los Angeles basin to the San Francisco Bay area in the 2020s.
Diana Gomez with the High-Speed Rail Authority said the new electric rail system will help end congestion on our crowded freeways and also help to improve air quality.
As the Shinkansen system was expanded it helped facilitate the economic growth of areas outside the Tokyo metropolitan area allowing companies to locate facilities in areas where transportation had been quite limited.
D uring the recent election season, the California high-speed rail project came under attack once again, with candidates vowing to defund it. "Let's focus on real job creation," said GOP gubernatorial candidate Neel Kashkari in one television commercial, as he smashed a toy train.
Do Kashkari and others have a point? Is the multibillion-dollar project unlikely to produce good jobs?
I believe they are wrong, as long as the state remains focused on keeping job creation as a principal goal of the program.
The California High-Speed Rail Authority has already negotiated a comprehensive "construction careers" program with the State Building and Construction Trades Council of California, one that guarantees access to apprenticeship programs for disadvantaged and unemployed workers, prioritizing those from the state's poorest areas, including Fresno and the Central Valley.
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