Caltrans announced the groundbreaking of a $38 million rail project that will add 3.8 additional miles of track to the Los Angeles area, vastly improving Amtrak service between San Diego, Los Angeles and San Luis Obispo.

The “Triple Track Project” is fully-funded from stimulus dollars (remember those?) as part of a larger $163 million, 15-mile main line track expansion between the cities of Commerce and Fullerton in Southern California.  The project will lay an additional third track next to the two existing lines.

For all the hype about high speed rail, improvements to our existing Amtrak service like these are much cheaper and faster to build.  It’s not an excuse not to do high speed rail necessarily, but these investments will still be necessary, given the limited route, long time horizons, and expense of building high speed rail.