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by anologwintermut 4688 days ago
Even if $2.5 billion for land acquisition is realistic (if you build most of it next to I5 and need a 10ft wide swath of land, it might be), the route would never be approved by the california legislature. A large part of the problem with infrastructure costs is politics, not engineering.
1 comments
anigbrowl 4688 days ago
It'd be more likely to be approved with only 2 endpoints, since the logical thing then would be to make the route as short as possible. OTOH HSR's route through the Central Valley is partly dictated by the availability of funding from the federal government for development in that part of the state; if it was purely up to CA I think it would just run along the coastline.
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Aloisius 4688 days ago
> if it was purely up to CA I think it would just run along the coastline.

Actually, the only two cities it connects to in the Central Valley are among the largest population centers in California: Fresno (#5 largest city in CA) and Bakersfield (#9 largest city). By comparison, there aren't any large population centers southwest of San Jose until you're almost to LA with maybe the exception of Salinas.

Plus, if you want to swing up to Sacramento (#6 largest city) at a later point, then going inland makes more sense.

The whole thing built out with all phases connects 9 out of 10 of the largest cities in CA (Oakland is the only one left out).

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anigbrowl 4688 days ago
Oh I agree, but so far the people in the Central Valley don't, and think it's some sort of scheme to oppress them: http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21582556-can-hug...

Wha tI mean is that most of the popular backing for HSR seems to be in SF, SJ and LA. The interior of CA is like this whole different country.

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tzs 4688 days ago
I see Merced on all the maps on the state's HSR site, and Modesto and Stockton on maps for later phases of the project. Where did you see it would only connect to Fresno and Bakersfield?
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Aloisius 4688 days ago
Woops. I didn't see Merced.
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anologwintermut 4688 days ago
Until all the cities on the proposed HSR route want in. Now, maybe it's cheap enough that's not a problem. Wanting to be part of a $6B project v.s. a $60B project, but I doubt it.

The first thing someone is going to try to do is get it to connect somewhere in the middle of no where to San Jose to inflate their real-estate prices.

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