A Different Future with California High-Speed Rail

[tularetom]

1. I wish they would reconsider the I-5 alignment

I live in the foothills to the east of the proposed alignment shown in green on that map so it involves a drive of about 35 miles for me to access a station. If they moved to the so called I-5 alignment my drive would increase by another 30+ miles.

But I'm not getting any younger and I'd like to see this project built in my lifetime. And the proposed alignment is just loaded with complications primarily in the area of buying rights of way. The area is made up primarily of small farms and rural residential lots (5 to 20 acres) and consequently there are a lot of issues to deal with (relocation, loss of revenue, finding comparable properties etc) not to mention the sheer bureaucratic overhead of preparing multiple deeds, court cases, legal fees and so forth. By contrast the I-5 alignment would traverse an area of huge holdings, many in the thousands of acres, and a lot of fallow ground. So there would be fewer owners to deal with and the value of the land would be less. Furthermore there would be potential for more high speed sections because of the lack of populated areas along the alignment.

The French consortium that built the TGV submitted a proposal for the I-5 alignment to the HSR commission early on but it was rejected due to political pressure from legislators representing districts along the route that was ultimately selected.

I'm overjoyed that the state has opted to go ahead with this project but I'm not optimistic about its chances for success given the current alignment.