advertisement

---

The California High Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) had barely passed the deadline on its draft environmental impact report public comment period before welcoming Japanese transportation officials to a two-day Japanese-California High Speed Rail Symposium.

Held yesterday and today, the symposium enables California public officials, policy makers, business leaders and transportation officials, and Japan’s bullet train operators to discuss Japan’s high-speed train success during the past 40 years. Symposium attendees also include the Japanese Ministry of Land, Infrastructure & Transport’s director of engineering for the railway division, Central Japan Railway Co.’s manager of research and development, and the director of the Japan Railway Construction, Transport and Technology Agency.

"We are listening to system operators who have decades of experience providing safe and reliable technology in rail," said CHSRA Executive Director Mehdi Morshed in a prepared statement. "What Japan did a half a century ago, we can do today in California."

CHSRA plans to begin preparing the final environmental impact statement for a proposed 700-mile statewide system.