Explore the California High Speed Rail route from above in an airplane to not only see how construction is coming along, but also to observe all of the terrain standing in the way of finishing one of the largest engineering projects in the world. Starting in downtown Los Angeles, we fly 270 miles north along the route through the Mojave desert and Central Valley.
I think the rail will only succeed if funding for it is conditioned on actual delivery of rail services to paying customers, instead of funding it up front like a foyer bathroom remodel with shady contractors and no accountability.
The central valley deserves train stops imo, definitely including Bakersfield. There are a lot of people living there and it’s an area of relative housing affordability, something which greater California could not enable enough.
If serious about the goals, they would have followed a straight, shortest route from LA to SF, running frequently, with feeder lines to/from Central Valley and larger coastal cities (Santa Barbara, SLO, Monterey, Salinas, Santa Cruz, etc)
Given where it ended up, mainly because of Congressional shenanigans, it will end up as a little-used, publicly subsidized boondoggle. I’m all for efficient public transit, but this is such a missed opportunity, and a huge waste of taxpayer money. We’ll have mid-range electric airplanes before this thing gets going.
I know this project as a whole isn’t about Bakersfield, but there will be a station here and the first segment (currently under construction) will go from Bakersfield to Madera.
Are you looking forward to its completion or do you think it’s a waste of money?
I’m looking forward to it but think the choice of location for the Bakersfield station is ridiculous. That area is not the first impression I want visitors to have of Bakersfield.
