If HSR cannot be stopped and bond funding re-allocated to regional projects instead of destroying farm and ranchlands, and wasting funds competing with at least tax and fee-paying 5 LA-SF intercity private coach companies--and similarly airlines, then the best route for HSR into the Bay Area, and San Jose, is via the ACE and SJ trackway both due to heavier population centers enroute, Livermore, Pleasanton, etc (not Gilroy, Morgan Hill, Lodi, Galt, etc,). This would be consistent with Amtrak which does not go from SJ to the SF dead-end track. Amtrak relies on local transit and rail BART and deadly, outdated, street-level Caltrain. 227 people have been killed in accidents or easy-access suicides since the CHSRA and Democrat political establishment thought to use Caltrain's Peninsula Corridor tracks from SJ to SF deadend in 1995. At least 16 have died on Caltrain-HSR tracks in this most dense Bay Area Peninsula Corridor this year alone--with more to come as regularly as the months arrive on our calendar. With HSR using ACE-SJRRA tracks instead to the Bay Area, then, over the next 15 -20 years BART can finally complete the long-envisioned, extraordinarily bi-directional, high (double current) capacity, safe Bay Area backbone rail loop at "minimal" cost ~$13 Billion, but totally grade-separated making suicides more difficult and vehicular accidents impossible--thus reducing rider delays and increasing efficiency and likely farebox recovery up from BART's current 70% farebox rate.
There are so many advantages to running HSR on ACE/SJRRA tracks to Oakland (Jerry Brown's hometown) and San Jose/Silicon Valley, rather than uniquely through new environment-destroying Pacheco Pass tunnels and UNP-owned tracks into SJ then deadending in SF. Coming via ACE & SJRRA tracks to Richmond/Oakland could be an economic boon to these cities (example: Oakland's proposed Coliseum City complex and venues)while providing a straight trackway to Sacramento, again, though the proven heavily-traveled I-80 (Capitol Corridor trackway)corridor.
This dual concept (HSR via ACE+SJRRA, complete, one-seat, integrated, bidirectional, electrified, ...) Bart Around The Bay Loop would do more to reduce ICE automobile congestion-induced GHG/Carbon emissions while boosting economic vitality along all corridors while reducing congestion thus restoring highway capacity for vehicular long or very short distance mobility.
This is really a no-brainer to maximize rail and motorist, general fund, highway tax and fees, cap-and-trade dollar use.
From a legacy standpoint for the Governor's Brown, son Jerry would be completing one of his father's, Pat, most profound public service projects --BART Around The Bay in which Pat Brown was governor in 1962 at the initial BART groundbreaking ceremony--with LBJ!
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