Lessons Drawn from California High-Speed Rail

December 12, 2025
Virtual
Join on Zoom
12-1 p.m. CT
A man in a construction vest and hard helmet stands before a viaduct under construction

Speaker: Boris Lipkin, vice president of program development at STV

Boris Lipkin has a unique perspective to offer to those who want to see American high-speed rail built: he’s actually helped build it. Between 2018 and 2025, he served as the Northern California regional director at the California High-Speed Rail Authority, where he led the development of 160 miles of the system between San Francisco and Merced Counties.

In this discussion, Boris shares his personal insight into what makes such mega-infrastructure projects successful—and the challenges they can face. He identified six lessons in his recent paper Learning from California: Lessons Drawn from California High-Speed Rail for Other Large Infrastructure Projects, published by the Mineta Transportation Institute at San José State University. Join us as we uncover what other proposed high-speed rail projects—from Cascadia to the Illinois High-Speed Railway Commission—can do to lay a solid foundation.

It’s a Beautiful Country

Let’s see it. Let’s clean it. Let’s build it. Let’s make high speed rail a reality.

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