California Says It’s Investing Nearly $900 Million for Cutting-Edge Mass Transit Technology, Freight Movement and Transportation Options
Press release from Caltrans:
The California Transportation Commission (CTC) allocated $848 million this past week to advance mass transit systems, expand pedestrian and bicycle options and improve freight movement. Guided by Governor Gavin Newsom’s Build More, Faster – For All infrastructure agenda, these improvements will bolster local transportation options and California’s economy.
The Commission also took action to approve plans for new investments in California’s transportation infrastructure in the coming years. The CTC approved the 2026 State Highway Operation and Protection Program (SHOPP), which invests $17.9 billion over the next four years in the state highway system for new safety features, more access for bicyclists and pedestrians and repairs of pavement and bridges.
The funding includes $47 million from the federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 (IIJA) and $405 million via California’s Senate Bill 1 (SB 1), the Road Repair and Accountability Act of 2017.
“These investments modernize transit, strengthen freight and expand safe travel options,” said California Transportation Secretary Toks Omishakin. “This reflects a continued hallmark of Governor Newsom’s administration—strengthening and improving critical infrastructure throughout California’s communities.”
“The significant allocations made this past week support a sensible balance between immediate project needs with funding for long-term improvements that continue to shape the future of our transportation system,” said Caltrans Director Dina El-Tawansy.
Featured among the approved spending is $273 million to bring cutting-edge technology to rail systems under construction in the Bay Area and Southern California. The largest of these efforts is a $100 million allocation, which supports construction of a 5-mile tunnel as part of BART’s extension between downtown San Jose and the city of Santa Clara.
The allocation will construct a tunnel launch structure and tunnel supports, which is key for establishing the backbone for future tunneling operations on the project and maintains significant project progress. These efforts mark a transition from planning and preparation to sustained construction, bringing the transformational BART Silicon Valley Phase II project closer to reality for the region. The project is leveraging more than $1.2 billion in state funding, and it is being matched with billions more from local and federal funding sources.
“Transportation is ultimately about people — how we get to work, to school and to each other,” said CTC Chair Clarissa Falcon. “The investments we’re making improve safety, strengthen mobility, and connect communities across California. The Commission is proud to partner with Caltrans and regional agencies to deliver projects that make a real difference in people’s daily lives.”
The CTC also approved the 2026 State Transportation Improvement Program, which invests a total of $2.7 billion in priority projects in every county in California, as well as projects that better connect different regions of the state. These investments range from new sidewalks and bike paths to zero-emission buses and transit line extensions to new express lanes and bridge replacements. Over 60% of the new program funding supports biking, walking, rail, and transit.
Another $33 million will be spent to expand rail freight operations at the Port of Long Beach. Additionally, the Commission allocated $35 million to complete the design and construction of rail power stations in Los Angeles.
Other noteworthy investments include:
- $33 million to build a major, public-access electric vehicle charging facility on a 118-acre parcel in Sacramento.
- $3 million to help stabilize eroding parts of the Del Mar Bluffs in San Diego County.
Projects approved in District 1 include:
- Approximately $3.1 million toward roadway, lighting and pedestrian upgrades on Route 29 near Middletown in Lake County.
- Approximately $18 million in SB1 funding for emergency allocations toward roadway repairs and retaining wall construction on Route 1 south of the Wages Creek Bridge near Westport in Mendocino County following a series of winter storms in 2025.
- Approximately $5.5 million in SB1 funding for emergency allocations toward roadway repairs, drainage improvements and the construction of retaining walls following multiple winter storms in 2024 on Route 36 west of Bridgeville in Humboldt County.
- Approximately $2.1 million in SB1 funding for emergency allocations toward slide removal and roadway repairs on Route 271 near Leggett in Mendocino County.
- Approximately $1.3 million in SB1 funding for emergency allocations toward drainage improvements and roadway repairs on Route 1 near Manchester in Mendocino County following heavy rains in January 2026.
Approximately 11 percent of the total funding comes from IIJA. California has received an annual investment of approximately $16.7 billion in infrastructure funding since IIJA’s passage. That includes investments to upgrade the state’s roads, bridges, rail, public transit, airports, electric vehicle charging network, ports and waterways.
The remaining investments are supported by SB 1, which has provided nearly $5.5 billion annually for transportation projects since 2017. SB 1 calls for splitting the money between state and local agencies. Road projects progress through construction phases more quickly based on the availability of funds, including projects that are partially funded by SB 1.
For more information about transportation and other infrastructure projects funded with state and federal investments, visit build.ca.gov.
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Are we supposed to forget that california has spent 180 billion on a high speed rail that will NEVER operate? California really is the biggest con in America.
Land acquisition has been one of the major problems.
The State should have used eminent domain as this project serves a public need.
Still progress on the project is moving along– although, yes, at a frustratingly slow pace.
https://hsr.ca.gov/project-overview/
Careful of that sword you want to wield, to tear up perfectly useable farmland because of “public benefit” We have yet to see it almost 20 years later. We put people on the moon in less time and a LOT more science learned. You can’t just rip up someone’s business and land without compensation for it. Of note, HSR could have ripped out currently existing rail lines or placed theirs next to it. Nope, they went diagonal across pastures and orchards and tore up all their irrigation lines and canals and made it difficult to cross the rails to get to fields they can no longer use. Tilling and harvesting equipment likes to operate in squares and line, not triangles and other oddball shapes.
https://asmvincefong.medium.com/high-speed-rails-devastating-impact-on-central-valley-farmers-24db9d4425b5
100 acres gone, $500k on reworking lines, still no payment for Eminent Domain that was used.
Meanwhile, Brightline who is doing a buildout from Vegas to LA, is already moving passengers in Florida. $39 fares and privately built. HSR I doubt will ever be cheaper than airfare or even Greyhound. More like a 200 mile Uber.
Photo from Google Earth dated from October of last year near Corcoran. Sure there’s a nice new overpass in the middle of nowhere, not much else other than a dirt scrape north of it. If you follow the line further south, most of the line, save for the shiny new overpasses and some half assed reworking of irrigation canals and a LOT of stored equipment in lots that used to be farm, there isn’t much more development at all. The earth itself barely scraped and weeds already taking back over.
This is near Selma. I mean, it does make for a nice screensaver pic, but this is indicative of farmlands being cut in half. HSR picked the cheapest land to acquire by ED, yet farmers are still waiting on payment and have to pay for reworking the land themselves. As it is, there are no grade crossings for farm equipment to get from one side to the other. No easy work-and-turns.
At some point you have to fish or cut bait.
I absolutely agree that existing rail and even freeway rights of way should be where the tracks were constructed. It was opposition from wealthy and powerful rail companies that caused the HSR project to move onto cheaper farmland.
I’ll even amend my previous comment to go one step further.
Nationalize the rail system.
While I agree that taking this project out of the hands of California grifters wouldn’t be a bad thing, we shouldn’t need to nationalize our entire rail system just to build one rail line.
Rather than nationalize the railroads, why not just nationalize the tracks.
Like US highways and interstates? Those are government owned already. Railroads own both the rails and the rights-of-way. They also pay for their own maintenance, which the highways get via taxes.
If you pulled the Eminent Domain angle on railroads to nationalize them, the rail companies would simply shut off the locomotives and you’ll have nothing. You’re looking at several hundreds of billions of dollars in freight moved by rail every year. No way in hell they’re going to let that control go. Not unless you want tens of millions of more trucks on the roads hauling freight. And they have the clout and money and time to wait out a fussy politician or two.
Nobody in government really knows how to run a railroad outside of Amtrak and passenger-only lines in the bigger cities so you’re better off just letting them keep doing what they do. And let them pick up the maintenance costs too.
At the beginning of the project some committee decided that it would be too costly to just elevate the whole thing and avoid most of the long term surface disturbance. I question the validity of the long term calculations. IMHO, enhancing the existing rail lines for fast passenger service would be a better choice, but those lines are privately owned.
Wow. You know a lot about this.
When you said they could have run this new line parallel to an existing line, but didn’t, I wonder why.
If just belligerence? Or if maybe a functional reason…
I don’t know anything about it.
Other than knowing where Highway 99 is and how it runs parallel to I-5.
I lived down there for a while.
Flat, open farmland.
Using the existing lines would seem easy.
I wonder if the electric trains needed to be straighter than the existing track. Maybe because it goes so fast, or because it floats above a magnetic track.
I don’t know. A problem for engineers.
Japan is famous for its high speed rail.
They must have figured out a way to do it.
I wonder. If petrol continues to rise in price, if electric trains might start being economical.
Too late now, but the better and cheaper location for High Speed Rail would be adjacent (or on top of) the California Aqueduct since the land is already owned by the State. The east side of the San Joaquin Valley already has Amtrak which is capable of doing 79mph if the tracks were upgraded. Communities like Fresno, Merced and Bakersfield could have feeder busses operating to the High Speed Rail as well.
Should have stayed on the route that we voted for.
Land acquisition is a major hurdle in any large infrastructure project. That’s a piss-poor excuse.
Why do thee live here?
Hey Gavin where’s that high speed rail money??
IMHO:
$135 billion (some already spent and ‘new’ money) siphoned off…
Guided by Governor Gavin Newsom’s Build More, Faster – For All infrastructure agenda, these improvements will bolster local transportation options and California’s economy.
Let’s hear it for the Newsomites !!!
That incriminating information has been buried, officially redacted, and/or, classified, and is unsurprisingly no longer available for public scrutiny…
‘Some California high-speed rail records could remain secret under proposed law’
https://calmatters.org/politics/2026/02/california-high-speed-rail-record-exemption/
“IN SUMMARY”
“California created an inspector general to monitor its long-delayed high-speed rail project. Now, one lawmaker wants to allow that office to withhold some investigative records from the public.”
“Wilson, a Suisun City Democrat and a former county auditor, said her bill would empower the inspector general’s office and shield it from public records requests for sensitive data, such as whistleblowers’ identities, details of fraud, documents regarding pending litigation and records about security risks. High-speed rail authority officials often will not turn over sensitive records to the oversight agency out of fear that the office would be compelled to release them, forcing the inspector general’s office to jump through hoops to obtain information for audits, she argued. “
Wilson is also one of the “Forever California” city proponents. That’s her district. But been trying to get it built not as a brand new city, but through annexation of land by Suisun City and build it out that way. It’s a work around. Also considering how much she’s collected from transportation and transpo construction groups, it isn’t surprising that people want to keep some of that builder and funding legal data buried or suppressed. They’re making laws to legally hide their own doings from you and I. She’s does good things for her district, but the whole secrecy thing beyond protection of whistleblowers is suspect. The heat is on them for a massively overpriced, unusable-as-is project and silly lawsuits just make it more expensive for them. So just hide the accountability as deep as one can.
The ship has sailed for Newsome to spend his way out trouble with California’s infrastructure. You cant ( shouldn’t) spend dollars you don’t have. The Dems have bankrupt this state with all the feel good projects that produce nothing but a sucking sound as we swirl down the drain.
Can you say, “BOONDOGGLE”…???
Transportation has been critical for economical growth , good roads equals to money generation you need transportation routes that can have goods moved regularly and easily in order to generate dollars , so there is a public return on investments in transportation routes bike paths and walking trails to not generate the return on investment. And are rarely used for transportation but more for recreating and tourism , they should not be paid for from transportation funding but instead from tourism or park funding period
Guess they forgot Del Norte county again.. Can’t even get a Greyhound bus on the north coast anymore, while socal gets some more lanes added to their congested lives.
Just wait when the final figures are in for the tunnel to bypass Last Chance Grade. It will be interesting to hear the verbal gymnastics of the legislators explaining why there is no funding in the budget for this project.
Woo-hoo! More money laundered on trains-to-nowhere projects. Woo-hoo!
C’mon District 1, dig the change out of your couch cushions and finally build the Annie & Mary and Little River Trails!