Wouldn't it make more sense to go from a major city to another major city? LA to San Diego or (if Nevada would join in) LA to Las Vegas could help people. How many people go from Bakersfield to Merced? Am I missing something?

That is what I had always hoped for.

To shut off the northern part of the state is not a great idea, not that Bakersfield to Merced is a better idea!

The whole thing is a mess now IMO.

Last edited Tue Feb 12, 2019, 06:15 PM - Edit history (1)

Between Bakersfield and Merced. Too much sunked cost. Time for the hyperloop.

Good news. I missed that

I suspect it’s issues with getting land south of SF. We’re finally looking at being able to get BART down to San Jose, and it’s only by going through the East Bay and connecting it that way. The land on the Peninsula is incredibly valuable and there is a lot of NIMBY sentiment about the rail going through some of those neighborhoods.

What countries that have rail networks do not have rail between two major cities?

For example, Paris to Lyon or Paris to Marseilles. Or Barcelona to Madrid or Frankfurt to Berlin.

Maybe Newsom's decision is the only realistic one. I'm not in California and haven't followed this. But it just strikes me as ludicrous that rail service between two of California's five largest cities is not possible.

Our regional transit systems in Northern California like BART, CalTrain, Golden Gate Transit, MUNI, AC Transit, etc. are in dire need of expansion and upgrade. These systems handle work commutes for hundreds of thousands of people DAILY and are much more of a priority than a bullet train from L.A. to S.F.

We can do both. We can upgrade local trains AND have high speed rail.

We need high speed rail between LA and SF. It would help our state economy and our environment. With high speed rail, people can buy affordable family homes and still commute to work in SF and LA., something you should support.

Last edited Wed Feb 13, 2019, 12:56 AM - Edit history (1)

A Bakersfield to Merced line supplemented with buses is an unworkable substitute for an LA to SF line. Taking the Greyhound bus from LA to Bakersfield takes 2-3 hours. It's 4-6 hours for the bus ride from Merced to SF, depending on time of day. The bus ride from Merced to Bakersfield is only about 4 hours, so turning that into a one hour bullet train ride does not shave off that much of your total trip time. 

The bullet train promised a cheap two-hour-and-40-minute ride between San Francisco’s Transbay Terminal and LA’s Union Station. https://sf.curbed.com/2017/9/19/16331308/high-speed-rail-california 

Now, having to take the bus to complete the journey, we're talking anywhere from 12 to 15 hours of travel time from LA to SF, and that's assuming no down time waiting for your connecting buses/train, and one hour bullet train travel time between Bakersfield to Merced. Realistically, the LA to SF bus-train-bus trip would be closer to 18 hours. No one would do that. They would just take the Greyhound directly from LA to SF, which takes about 8 hours. Or the Amtrak from LA to Oakland, about 11 hours. Or fly, for one hour 30 minutes. 

A bullet train between Merced and Bakersfield will be a train to nowhere with no riders, just a pork barrel construction project for the Central Valley. Our only hope is that a future Governor(s) will have the guts to complete the line.

The big cities in the BIG VALLEY are Modesto, Stockton, & Sacramento.....At least the rail would zoom to FIVE "no where" towns.......