California High-Speed Rail: Origin and Possible Destinations

A lecture with Martin Wachs

The California High-Speed Rail program is an ambitious, controversial, and troubled project. It could shape the future of transportation in California and it could fail. This talk will briefly review its history and some of its ups and downs including funding, routes, and political squabbles. The talk will highlight some of the options facing the project and some key decisions that will have to be made in the near future.

Martin Wachs served as Professor of Civil & Environmental Engineering and of City & Regional Planning at the University of California, Berkeley, where he directed the Institute of Transportation Studies. He earlier spent 25 years at UCLA, where he was Chairman of the Department of Urban Planning for eleven years. After retiring from the University, Wachs became the Director of Transportation, Space, and Technology at the RAND Corporation. He is now teaching courses and conducting research at UCLA in transportation policy and working on transportation policy projects at RAND.