Fall 2024 I Will Ride Newsletter

This newsletter is designed for students and professionals who work with students to provide the latest high-speed rail news, student jobs, and transportation-related scholarships! Check back every month for updates or sign up to receive this newsletter at hsr.ca.gov/i-will-ride. 

CEO Choudri and Transportation Secretary Omishakin Visit California HSR Construction

Earlier this fall, newly appointed CEO Ian Choudri and California’s Transportation Secretary Toks Omishakin visited California’s Central Valley to tour ongoing California high-speed rail construction. On their tour, they visited the award-winning San Joaquin River Viaduct and the impressive Hanford Viaduct, among other sites. You can take a look at a video from the site visit where the leaders talk about progress to-date and future work for the High-Speed Rail Program.

The Start of a Civil Engineering Career, Cal Poly Pomona Student Alondra Martinez Work on California High-Speed Rail

Alondra Martinez had just wrapped up her first year as a civil engineering undergrad at Cal Poly Pomona in July when she looked at the new tasks in front of her on the first day of her new internship. These were projects and programs with big impacts on the communities she served. She dove in headfirst, ready to work and make her mark in transportation.

Flash forward to now, Martinez continues her work at Stantec, a design and consulting firm specializing in sustainable engineering, architecture, and environmental consulting services. Stantec is also leading advanced design efforts for the Merced to Madera project section for the California High-Speed Rail project. The Merced to Madera project is a 35-mile section north of active high-speed rail construction in California’s Central Valley.

Martinez was inspired by her father to go into engineering. She remembers her dad would take her to see projects that he worked on as an engineer, and what she learned from those experiences. “As I grew up, I realized civil engineering is more than just building and creating,” says Martinez. “Civil engineering is about improving the lives of the people who are going to utilize what is being built.”

Gaining valuable design experience early in her undergraduate education, Martinez shares that she is grateful to work on the high-speed rail project through Stantec. Martinez has learned to use engineering design software like Bentley, which she had only heard mentioned in class and was anticipating learning in her upper division courses. She credits her colleagues at Stantec for helping her learn the program among other things related to high-speed rail.

“It excites me knowing that these projects will have a long, lasting positive effect on people’s lives by making traveling safer, more efficient, more accessible, and more environmentally sustainable. I’m able to work on something that will create a cleaner future for the generations to come, because it will reduce the usage of cars.”

Mentorship is a common theme folded into all parts of her education and professional experience. Martinez was clear to note her gratitude for mentors at Stantec and credits the professionals she has been able to connect with as a student member of Women’s Transportation Seminar (WTS), an association dedicated to help advance women in the field of transportation. Martinez’s goals are impressive. Her desire to become a well-rounded engineer, while continuing to develop confidence in herself, will push her to be a leading expert in her field in no time.

Yaqeline Castro

Cal Poly SLO Construction Management Students Tour Construction in California’s Central Valley

This fall, the Authority welcomed construction management students from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo’s College of Architecture and Environmental Design for a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to tour high-speed rail construction in the Central Valley.

The partnership with Cal Poly SLO was developed during the re-launch of the I Will Ride program in 2020 when the Authority connected with educator and civil engineer Dr. Liz Adams, former instructor at Fresno City College and now instructor at Cal Poly SLO. From there, the partnership grew as she helped expand our student outreach and engagement efforts to the Central Coast.

“This experience offers them a unique chance to witness innovation and infrastructure development firsthand, helping them to connect classroom knowledge with real-world applications,” said Dr. Adams.

Students began their day with a project overview presentation in the regional Fresno office and a panel of Central Valley-based engineering professionals working on the high-speed rail project. During the panel presentation, students were curious to learn more about an engineer’s typical workday, how they achieve work and life balance, and how they chose their career path.

Students were then led on a walkthrough of the future Fresno Station area and the Tulare Street Underpass currently underway. Project engineer Ali Shumaila spoke to students about the status of the Tulare Street Underpass, challenges and milestones, and how the completed underpass would help improve safety and mobility in the area for drivers and pedestrians. Shumaila shared he too was a student of Dr. Adams back when he attended Fresno City College.

The tour included stops at some of our most iconic and recognized high-speed rail construction sites like the Cedar and Hanford Viaducts. Each stop during the construction tour was accompanied by engineering field experts who could detail the work on the structures. Students asked about different structural components they encountered, such as bridge abutments, joint seals, and reinforcing steel (rebar) configurations, and how structures are built for seismic activity.

Overall, the class seemed surprised by and impressed with the physical scale and the social significance of the project and thrilled to have the opportunity to engage with “history in the making.” Site visits like this help students grasp the true scale of a transportation megaproject.

“I am deeply grateful for the incredible opportunities I’ve had over the years to take students on hosted tours of the California High-Speed Rail during different stages of its construction,” says Dr. Adams.

This site visit was made possible and sponsored by Dragados-Flatiron Joint Venture.

Augie Blancas

Students and Industry Leaders Re-imagine Rail at Mobility Summit

Bay Area students interested in mobility and transportation gathered in November to participate in a panel discussion titled “Reimagining Rail in the US.” The Berkeley Haas Mobility Summit at the University of California, Berkeley brought together students with diverse majors like engineering, planning, law, and business.

The panel began with a briefing on innovative approaches to modernizing and expanding rail infrastructure led by leaders from the rail sector. Speakers represented California High-Speed Rail Authority, as well as from Link21 which is a project to better integrate BART with regional rail system, and from the Transbay Joint Powers Authority (TJPA), which oversees the Salesforce Transit Center. The moderator, Egon Terplan, is a specialist in regional economic development and senior fellow at the Institute of Transportation Studies (ITS).

Photo is a courtesy of Haas Mobility Summit organizers.

Terplan began the panel by referencing the challenges and social requirement needed to envision a future rail and transportation system. “In setting the framework for this discussion, I want to be clear that big infrastructure requires the essential element of time, long-term vision and a significant amount of patient capital, typically from the public sector,” said Terplan.

Morgan Galli, the Northern California Deputy Regional Director for the California High-Speed Rail Authority talked about financing the future for rail and transit, among other topics in the wide-ranging discussion. “The public sector is delivering the biggest projects,” she said about the development of transportation infrastructure nationally. “Private projects are getting delivered with public funds. You cannot get them delivered without public funding and public support. There is a place for technology such as autonomous vehicles, but to see innovation in our systems in the future we need clean, fast passenger rail as a backbone for our transportation networks.”

Adam Van de Water, the Executive Director of the TJPA, focused on the everyday challenges of people in urban settings. “How do we want to move around?” he asked. “I will take a bike or a Waymo, but I won’t take either very far… I am looking forward to taking high-speed rail from San Francisco to Los Angeles without TSA in between.” He cautioned, “These are long scale things, these projects take decades to deliver,” but pointed out the obvious benefits of rail: “It is an opportunity to connect communities.”

Brian Soland, the acting director of Link21, discussed ways to increase the equity benefits of public transit. He pointed out that land use can benefit from new stations and the broader impact of public transit. The impacts of transportation projects cannot happen in a vacuum because ultimately, they impact communities.

Shum Preston

Bakersfield to Palmdale, High-Speed Rail Route into Antelope Valley

The Authority has broken down the California High-Speed Rail Project into various segments to complete CEQA and NEPA processes for environmental clearance. One of those project sections is Bakersfield to Palmdale, which was environmentally cleared in 2021. Take a look at our latest video that details the Bakersfield to Palmdale project section. The video also highlights some of the important monuments close to the alignment, like the Cesar E. Chavez National Monument and the rail Tehachapi Loop. This specific project section ends at the future multimodal Palmdale station.

National Student Transportation Competitions, Writing and Visual Arts

The Mineta Transportation Institute (MTI) is a research and training institute housed in California’s San Jose State University. The institute was founded by lifetime public servant and Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient Norman Y. Mineta. Among many education-based initiatives, MTI is currently accepting entries to their annual writing and visual arts poster contests. This year’s theme for both contests is “Get Going, Go Green!”

Visual Arts Poster Contest: In this contest, intended for students in 1st through 6th grade, MTI invites students to convey their knowledge of safe, affordable, and sustainable alternative transportation modes to passenger cars through an artistic, visually compelling image. This year’s competition is co-sponsored by the American Public Transportation Institute. The deadline to submit an essay is December 13, 2024.

Essay Contest: In this contest, intended for students in 6th through 12th grade, MTI asks students to propose real-world solutions to transportation related issues following the principles of sustainability, equity, safety, community and innovation. The deadline to submit an essay is February 3, 2025.

California High School Students Unite for Public Transportation Efforts

An article, published by Mass Transit Magazine, shares about a great new California student coalition built by high schoolers to expand and improve public transportation options in California. Read more to learn about the California High-School Transit Alliance.