Summary: It’s been a while since I wrote about my homes-state’s project to link our three largest metropolitan regions (SF Bay Area, Los Angeles and San Diego) with a California High-Speed Rail System (hereafter HSR) while connecting through many other major cities in the Central Valley, Inland Empire and Orange County. See the map in Section 2 of this paper for details.
My last update of this project was three years ago, but in defense of my tardiness, HSR has been making steady progress in building out the central part of the system, while transit districts in the SF Bay Area and Southern California have made progress on building bridging sections.
As costs ballooned and political backlash mounted, the California High-Speed Rail Authority pivoted years ago to building its 400-mile bullet train between San Francisco and Los Angeles in segments — starting with a 171-mile stretch connecting the agricultural cities of Merced and Bakersfield.
But in an interview with the Bay Area News Group this week, the CEO of the California High-Speed Rail Authority, Ian Choudri, said he is pushing to build the railroad north to Gilroy and south to Palmdale simultaneously with construction in the Central Valley. Palmdale and Gilroy will be connected into the larger, respectively, LA Metro Area and SF Bay Area by rail commuter systems that will be completed by the time the CHSR System reaches them.
