Opinion: The promise of High-Speed Rail

In 2008, when I was asked to vote in favor of issuing bonds for the construction of high-speed rail connecting San Francisco to Los Angeles, I’m not sure what I envisioned. It sounded like a great idea, but I’ve traveled the state from border to border and ocean to desert, and I could not imagine any way of making that trip because of the many established cities on the route and the features of the terrain. Nevertheless, I made the assumption that planners and engineers would figure out a way to get the train to I-5 and then run parallel to the superhighway.

Time passed. Nothing much happened. But when we Californians voted in 2008, we were promised that by 2020 passengers would be boarding the “bullet train” in San Francisco and arriving in Los Angeles about three hours later. That sounded fantastic, and we could hardly wait to see the master plan for this marvelous feat. Perhaps the California High-Speed-Rail Authority (CHSRA) felt the pressure to do something. So, the braintrust came up with the idea of starting the project in the Great Central Valley. Sure. That should be easy. A handful of cities. Lots of open space. No mountains to worry about. Just buy up a bunch of farm land, lay down some track. Build a few stations. The initial plan was to connect Borden to Corcoran. Bad plan. Public reaction was, “A train from nowhere to hunh?”

The years roll by

The years, but not the train, rolled by. And the plan changed. The new plan is to connect “somewhere north of Madera,” but — not Madera, itself — to Shafter, a small city in an agricultural area north of Bakersfield. Apparently, this made sense to the big brains in charge of the project. I don’t know who would be boarding the train “somewhere north of Madera” and why in the world they would want to go to Shafter. I don’t mean to be disparaging to Shafter. It’s a very nice community, but it’s really not a “destination.”