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Comment by gumby | Hacker News Reader

That "other nonsense" would tie the Central Valley (probably the third largest economic region in the state?) into the two largest economies of the state (SF Bay and LA Basin), making it possible for people to live out there and still participate in the booming regions. Not as a daily commute but it makes it feasible to live and work out there, with a commute from SF-Bakersfield about as long as SF-Livermore is by car today.

This would reduce a lot of the population pressure on the SF Bay, lowering real estate prices and knitting the state more tightly together.

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I agree in theory. The connection has a lot more value than the trips themselves. You could locate a company in these regions and access the talent and funding pool of the larger cities, and so could the employees.

Unfortunately, many of these cities seem to already suffer from sprawl which might limit their potential. Going from SV through farmland just to eventually end at a tiny station, with little public transport and low rise buildings would be a little bit too ironic.

It is almost like it would make sense to build the stations between the towns, or at least at one end of them.

But they weren't going to connect either end to anything. It was just a boondoggle railroad through nowhere. If at least one end had been in the Bay or in LA, it might have made a little sense.

> But they weren't going to connect either end to anything.

Yes, they were. There was confusion caused by Newsome's restatement of the status quo (that the outside funding sought for construction outside of the initial construction segment had not yet been secured, and until it was, that construction wouldn't happen), but the plan was always to continue environmental clearances and work on lining up funding for the entire Phase 1 SF-LA project, with focus on first finishing the SJ-Bakersfield initial operating segment (of which the Merced to Bakersfield initial construction segment included a large part.)

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