![]() ![]() ![]() Nowhere are those opposing viewpoints more vividly on display than in the state Legislature. While the rail system’s critics see an unwieldy, ultra-expensive project limping along with no completion date in sight, its supporters view the bullet train as a cost-efficient, environmentally friendly alternative to the state’s perennially clogged freeways and airports. Some disconnected pieces of the framework, though - overpasses, viaducts and pergolas - can be found scattered across a 119-mile stretch in the Central Valley, which eventually will form the bulk of a 171-mile rail line between Bakersfield and Merced. Today, nearly 14 years after the initiative passed, not one mile of rail has been built. Costs have also skyrocketed the estimated price tag for the entire system now exceeds $100 billion, a far cry from the initial $45 billion estimate. In the intervening years, though, the effort has been beset by legal challenges, construction delays and disagreements among state political leaders. Video Courtesy of the California High-Speed Rail Authority Sorry, your browser doesn't support embedded videos. California voters narrowly approved the initiative in 2008, earmarking a $9.95 billion bond that, in combination with federal dollars, would pay for bullet trains to whisk riders between Los Angeles and San Francisco in roughly 2 hours and 40 minutes. Troubled beginningsĬalifornia’s high-speed rail system is easily the most ambitious, and controversial, infrastructure project in North America today. But it’s a risky gambit, upending hundreds of lives for a project whose future is anything but secure. If everything goes as planned, bullet trains could be running to San Francisco by 2033. Rail officials expect to spend roughly $8 billion buying dozens of residential units and more than 100 businesses that stand in the way of the planned Bay Area lines property owners have already begun receiving notices that that the incoming lines may affect them. #METRO 4 MOVIES HANFORD CA TRIAL#Now, officials are trying to apply lessons learned through trial and error to the next phase of development, building rail lines through and between the state’s sprawling coastal metropolises.Įarlier this year, the agency’s board of directors approved initial plans for two Bay Area segments, one from the Central Valley up to San Jose and another continuing to San Francisco. While early plans called for core segments of the tracks to be completed statewide by 2020, complications have resulted in numerous setbacks since the agency first broke ground in 2015.Ĭonstruction so far has been limited to a 171-mile section through the sparsely populated Central Valley, where California’s High-Speed Rail Authority has spent more than $1.4 billion buying property - a process that has served as a major source of the delays.Ī construction site in Fresno for California's high-speed rail line is seen on Jan. The building that housed OK Produce was one of several hundred structures in California’s Central Valley that the state purchased and demolished to make way for the 500-mile high-speed rail system that may one day connect Los Angeles to San Francisco. ![]()
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