Just when you thought it was safe to go to sleep, California High Speed Rail arrives to haunt your dreams with acres and acres of glorious parking. In all seriousness, the CAHSR Authority put up some Power Point slides of a presentation about their Central Valley stations and I was extremely surprised by the amount of parking planned. It seems counter to the ideal of getting away from cars and creating better mobility options through rail and other public transit. In this video I examine this California High Speed Rail Authority document and lay out the case for why I think the approach of these stations will ultimately be detrimental for most of the cities involved, and the San Joaquin Valley as a whole. We'll take a look at stations at Merced, Madera, Fresno, Kings/Tulare, and Bakersfield.

Image attribution:

"Station / Gare LiègeGuillemins is the main station of the city of Liège, in eastern Belgium. It is one of the most important hubs in the country and is on the highspeed train network. The station is used by 36,000 people every day. In 1838, only three years after the first continental railway, a line linking Brussels and Ans, in the northern suburbs of Liège, was opened. The first train station of LiègeGuillemins was inaugurated in May 1842, linking the valley to the upper Ans station. In 1843, the first international railway connection was born, linking Liège to Aachen and Cologne. The station was modernized and improved in 1882 and in 1905 for the World Fair in Liège. This station was replaced in 1958 by a modern (for that time) one that was used until June 2009, a few months before the opening of the new Calatrava designed station. The new station by the architect Santiago Calatrava has now been openend. It has 9 tracks and 5 platforms (three of 450m and two of 350m). All the tracks around the station have been modernized to allow high speed arrival and departure. The new station is made of steel, glass and white concrete. It includes a monumental dome, 200 meters long and 35 metres high. The building costs were € 312 million. The station was officially opened on September 18 2009 with a show by Franco Dragone"

by Bert Kaufmann

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...

"Interno del World Trade Center Transportation Hub"

by Anthony Quintano

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...

Chapters:

0:00 Intro
0:20 The Presentation
1:42 Merced
4:52 Madera
6:38 Fresno
9:44 Kings/Tulare
12:15 Bakersfield
16:10 Conclusion
16:58 Up Next
17:10 See You On That Big, Beautiful Freeway!

topics:

CAHSR
California High Speed Rail
Central Valley
Park and Ride
Merced
Madera
Fresno
Hanford
Visalia
Kings/Tulare
Bakersfield
Transit oriented development
Regional bus service
Parking lots
Small businesses
Parking structures
Future demolition
Station cross sections
Pedestrian circulation
High speed rail stations
Merced Casino
Sketchy renders
San Joaquin Joint Powers Authority
Madera Community College
Silicon Valley
California bay area
Chowchilla
CAHSR high speed wye
Bus depots
Fresno metro
Bakersfield metro
Downtown Fresno
Fresno Chinatown redevelopment
Weird Al Yankovic
Freddy Krueger
Gavin Newsom
Curbside oil changes
Photovoltaic field
Central Valley Groundwater recharge
San Joaquin Valley
International Space Station
Lifestyle centers
Bakersfield mall
Stroads
Bakersfield's bizarre road network
The isolated nature of the Bakersfield CAHSR station
LAX
Victoria Gardens
Apparent upper middle class lifestyle center tranquility
Tax disputes
Suburban sprawl
Car dependence
Transit
Single family homes