California’s HSR scar

Financially and physically the high speed rail is leaving a scar on what is left of California.

“YouTuber “the Four Foot” flew a drone over the entire 119-mile route last year and posted a two-hour video. The images are very telling.

The site looks more like an abandoned movie set of a high-speed rail construction site, than an actual construction site. There is a lot of rusting rebar, both in piles and sticking out of half-done concrete. 

There’s not a whole lot of porta potties, only two locations had a high density of toilets.  This is an indication of how many workers are (or aren’t) involved.

The other thing?  There was no actual work happening in the video.  It might have been a Sunday or holiday, but serious construction sites (like I 70 in Glenwood Canyon in the 80s) run 24/7”

They have mad slums out of portions of Fresno.  The total cost will be north of $200 billion, with few riders who can afford to waste time on a train ride from Bakersfield to San Fran and no money to operate the system anyway.

California’s HSR scar

By Nick Lopez, American Thinker,  9/21/23  https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/09/californias_hsr_scar.html

Although the California High Speed Rail “project” hasn’t been officially declared dead, it’s pretty obvious that it will only be a matter of time before this happens.

Officially the project has been “scaled back” to running only between Merced and Bakersfield, possibly the least desirable city pair to link with bullet trains on the planet.

YouTuber “the Four Foot” flew a drone over the entire 119-mile route last year and posted a two-hour video. The images are very telling.

The site looks more like an abandoned movie set of a high-speed rail construction site, than an actual construction site. There is a lot of rusting rebar, both in piles and sticking out of half-done concrete. 

There’s not a whole lot of porta potties, only two locations had a high density of toilets.  This is an indication of how many workers are (or aren’t) involved.

The other thing?  There was no actual work happening in the video.  It might have been a Sunday or holiday, but serious construction sites (like I 70 in Glenwood Canyon in the 80s) run 24/7. 

Sure, they have “made progress,” but the “completed” sections are all in high-profile areas, visible from the highway.  Like it’s being done for show. 

Watching the entire flyover, one can see extremely challenging spans that have had zero construction.  These are places that cannot be seen from a highway.

The biggest takeaway is that the site doesn’t look like it could possibly be as over budget as it is.  And it really looks like it is going to be abandoned.

And what happens if the project is abandoned? What the heck does one do with a 119-mile scar filled with half-finished viaducts and underpasses? 

It really can’t be made into a highway due to its proximity to existing railroad tracks and width. It’s not going to be a very good walking path either.

Maybe it could be turned into a 119-mile line homeless camp?  Sort of like what Saudi Arabia is doing with Neom, but with tents and broken-down RVs instead?

If they finish High Speed Rail in the Central Valley it will be an economic disaster, if they don’t it will be an environmental disaster.  (Plus an eyesore and economic disaster in the Central Valley).

Naysayers of the project have already dubbed the Bakersfield to Merced HSR line as “the train to nowhere.” This is a bit of a misnomer, as there is no train present.  Perhaps “the Central Valley Scar” is the term that needs to be coined.

Just South of Laughlin, NV sits an abandoned hotel and golf course construction site.  It’s sad, ugly, and so exposed to the elements that it’s unusable.

If California High Speed Rail fails, it will be 119 miles of that same sad ugliness, equally unusable.