Opinion: Insurmountable challenges

The Slo-mo Choo-choo

Long after I’m dead, perhaps a train will transport people from somewhere around the San Francisco Bay (possibly Oakland instead of S.F.) to somewhere in the Los Angeles Basin (possibly Pacoima). But, by the time that the project is completed, there will likely be other, better, faster, more convenient, and less expensive forms of transportation that we haven’t yet imagined.

In its effort to show the people of the Golden State that progress is being made on its “impossible dream,” the CAHSRA has poured billions of dollars into constructing a system from “somewhere north of Madera” (probably the proposed wye in Chowchilla) to Shafter or maybe Bakersfield (in Kern County). But even this unlikely prospect faces at least four challenges that will probably delay completion until sometime in the next decade or following decades.