HSR Authority to hold informational meeting Monday as construction steadily approaches city
BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) – You’ve probably seen the construction – raised platforms that will one day carry high speed trains down through the state’s Central Valley.
Now, we’re starting to get a better look at what it will look like when it gets here.
The multi-billion-dollar project that many people thought would never come to fruition is practically pulling into the station. The project’s Phase 1, which will take $24 billion to $35 billion to complete, is a 171-mile segment that starts near Merced. It will terminate, for now, near the intersection of Highway 204 (Golden State Avenue) and F Street, not far from downtown Bakersfield’s Garces Circle.
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A portion of Bakersfield’s slick, sci-fi-flavored station, which many have now seen in renderings, will occupy land from the present site of the Golden Empire Transit headquarters, just east of a four-acre patch of dirt. That land, appropriately, was home to a landmark way station for travelers back in the 1960’s and ’70s — Rancho Bakersfield, with its famous Let’s Eat sign. It was later home to a halfway house called Restoration Village, whose sign still stands. The restoration continues to this day, in ways we couldn’t have imaged back during those eras.
The 220-mph electric train – with business-friendly interior – will have stations in Merced, Madera, Fresno, and Hanford. Bakersfield will be the terminus – the end of the line, for now. The train then reverses course and takes the same track north – until the next phase is complete, linking Bakersfield to Palmdale by way of the Tehachapi Mountains.
That’ll be an 80-mile, 25-minute trip that will cross some of the most complicated terrain along the statewide system, requiring innovative engineering.
California High Speed Rail remains controversial, mostly because of its astronomical cost to the state’s taxpayers, but the train’s arrival will mean an almost immeasurable economic boost to Bakersfield.
That’s the opinion of Richard Gearhart, professor of economics at CSU Bakersfield.
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“It will also spur some economic development around that central rail hub,” Gearhart said. “It will be restaurants, those quick convenience stores, and there could be maybe some affordable housing popping up nearby. The biggest micro-benefit of either a high speed rail or a pretty significant growth in public transportation is population centers building up around these hubs.”
Gearhart says Bakersfield will be forever changed.
“If you want Bakersfield to grow economically, if you want Bakersfield to diversify its economy, things like high speed rail are important first steps,” he said. “(It) will help us chart a future for the next few decades as we slowly phase away from oil and ag.”
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