Drive up and down Highway 99 in Fresno County and you will no doubt see evidence that California’s high-speed rail project is slowly becoming a reality. While there’s still big questions about how long it will take to finish the entire project, and how the state will pay for it, the rail authority says it hopes to have trains up and running by 2024.
Backers often point to the success of high-speed rail projects in Europe and Asia as evidence of the potential it has to change the way we move around the state. One of the nations most often cited is China. So what is the state of high-speed rail there, and what could California learn from the way the Chinese have built and operated their high-speed rail lines? Joining us now is Fresno State political science professor Daniel Garst, who recently returned from China, where he spent 12 years and a journalist and policy analyst. He'swritten about their projects and joined us to offer his insights into what they mean for California.