The California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) recently released its 2018 State Rail Plan, which highlights the state’s goals over the next 20 years to improve safety, help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and boost the economy.
With the plan, the state hopes to boost rail travel by 92 million passenger miles daily through an integrated system that will allow passengers to easily transfer from local transit services to regional, intercity and future high-speed rail. The multimodal system will allow more trains to be in more places more often and will streamline the process by allowing passengers to buy one ticket for the entire trip.
This will potentially eliminate 250 fatalities and 19,000 transportation-related injuries annually by 2040, according to the plan.
“Rail is a key part of the solution for addressing California’s transportation challenges,” Caltrans Director Laurie Berman said. “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.”
Freight also is addressed in the plan, which improves grade-crossing at a corridor-level and supports short line improvements.