By Kerry Jackson, Issues & Insights | July 01, 2026
Editor’s note: This is excerpted, with permission, from the Pacific Research Institute’s Right by the Bay blog.
With a grand high-speed rail project struggling to lay its first track nearly two decades after voters approved it, California seems to be moving on to its next transportation fiasco: A high-speed bus system connecting Los Angeles and San Francisco that reaches an implausibly brisk 140 mph along the way.
It seems more likely that we’d see a city bus driven by Sandra Bullock jump the unfinished gap in a freeway ramp and land it like a 747.
But CalTrans sees high-speed bus travel “as a potential enhancement to the state’s public transportation network.”
At a recent hearing, Sen. Dave Cortese of San Jose, chair of the Senate Transportation Committee, said “high-speed buses are not a bad idea.” They are, in fact, “a good idea” and “certainly an option to rail.”
The hearing explored a recent CalTrans proposal for running high-speed buses in exclusive lanes.
The proposal reads as if someone took plans for the high-speed rail and substituted “bus” for all references to the train. For instance, “achieving safe, high-speed operation requires dedicated infrastructure, substantial vehicle redesign, and advanced safety and communication technologies.” But unless hills are flattened, sharp curves are smoothed and “specialized vehicles” that travel at hyper velocities while also avoiding crashes can be produced, speeds will be lower than promised.
Read the rest here.
Kerry Jackson is a guest contributor to Issues & Insights.
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