Amtrak’s Airo Trainsets. Amtrak announced on September 17 that it will debut the new Airo trainsets on its Cascades services in the Pacific Northwest. The new trainsets are designed to make every trip more comfortable, with improved seating, accessible seating, enhanced wayfinding, and new Cafe experience. Services with the new Airo trainsets are set to begin on September 30.

The FAA’s New A.I. Scheduling Tool. USDOT announced on September 21 that the Federal Aviation Administration has developed a new AI-powered tool, the “Strategic Management of Airspace, Routes and Trajectories (SMART)” system, to try and predict where weather and overscheduling will cause congestion problems. See the fact sheet explaining the system here.

California High-Speed Rail Needs More Money. (Again!) The Fresno Bee on September 22 ran a story entitled “Facing cash crisis, high-speed rail wants early access to billions promised by state.” Apparently, the California High Speed Rail Authority will run out of cash next year unless the legislature allows them to borrow against the $1 billion per year which CHSRA is owed from state carbon cap-and-trade revenues from now through 2046. Problem: the state Legislative Analyst says that the legislature just made changes to the cap-and-trade system that makes the $1 billion per year return for CHSRA too unreliable to borrow against without other collateral or other guaranteed revenue backstops…

Pushback Against E-Bikes. The Wall Street Journal on September 24 ran a story from Orange County, California called “The California District Attorney Cracking Down on the Scourge of E-Bikes.” (The jist is that it’s not that all e-bikes are inherently bad, it’s that parents in the O.C. are being held legally responsible for accidents caused by their minor children when the parents buy them overpowered e-bikes with top speeds over 45 mph, legally classified as motorcycles and requiring a drivers license and insurance, which the kids don’t have.)