CA doesn't not have the competence, leadership, or the right population anymore to ever make HSR a reality. They should just focus on mass transit in the cities but that also is completely mismanaged.
Why don't they just import a steam train from Lhasa? That's about as close to first world tech that grifty grafty Democrat dominated third world Cali will ever get any more for their pork barrel billions. They shouldn't even try to play with the infrastructure big boys any more.
There used to be a coastal train line up the peninsula to SF. I read it was mostly to bring agricultural produce from Half Moon Bay and similar areas up to SF.
It would be very cool to resurrect that line and give SF commuters a new place they could live without driving to work.
There was also a line over the coastal range to Santa Cruz, but people in Santa Cruz have objected to it being re-opened because they don't want more people commuting from Silicon Valley.
These would be public goods and it seems wrong that NIMBYs can block them for their own selfish reasons.
I always thought of the proposed train as a way to integrate the Central Valley with the coastal cities.
We're so smug and hip and cool along the coast, even though we must import our water from far away including pumping against gravity over mountain ranges. Yes, yes, I know, the original Hetch Hetchy was all by gravity. But it only supplies a fraction of the Bay Area's needs and doesn't supply the southland where most coastal Californians live.
Central Valley folks are in the natural watershed that we divert to the coast. Moreover, they are a safe distance from the major earthquake faults. Maybe they're better off without us.
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