The California high-speed rail project could be heading to the Bay Area in the next decade, and its arrival has the potential to displace hundreds throughout the region.
. Rail officials expect to spend about $8.1 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 they’ll have to sell.
Nowhere are those opposing viewpoints more vividly on display than in the state Legislature. Disagreements over the project’s viability, and disputes over how state dollars should be spent, have dominated talks in recent years. But one thing many Republicans and Democrats agree on —— is that the current approach of building in the Central Valley first is the wrong one.
The grant stipulated that the funds had to be used for construction on a specific 119-mile stretch between Madera and Shafter, two smaller cities in the Central Valley. And all that money had to be spent by 2017, or it would disappear, Kelly said. “They’re building the easiest part first, and that’s exactly what you don’t do,” he told SFGATE. “If you think about it tactically, you would build the most difficult parts first because, once they are there, it would be meaningless not to finish.”
People whose properties are in the way have little say in the matter. Even if they resist moving, rail officials can fall back on eminent domain — a legal process where the government asserts ownership of private property for public use — as a “last result,” as the ensuing court battles last well over a year on average.Video courtesy of the California High-Speed Rail Authority
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