[r00fus]

Does anyone know why using spurs (branch lines) is a bad thing?

For example, the BART runs a branch line to Dublin/Pleasanton (and possibly Livermore) but it's not part of the "trunk" to Richmond.

[tehabe]

The route is branching, you have a route from LA to San Francisco but it is branching to Merced and later this branch gets extended to Sacramento.

It is always a trade-off, you'll never get the perfect route.

[Gibbon1]

I also think that people get way too hung up on the SF to LA bit. Where the California HSR is about a lot more than just that. The SF -> LA -> San Diego part is actually mostly about freeing up airports to handle longer distance national and international traffic.

The central valley part is to tie the central valley cities to the each other and to the coastal cities. I think another part to is try to reduce future sprawl of the central valley cities. Much as people in Bakersfield and Fresno may hate that, it's the right thing to do going forward.

Other part that is totally ignored is that most of the riders will be commuters similar to BART. They won't go from SF to LA, but from SF to San Jose, or Morgan Hill to San Jose, etc.