High-Speed Rail Fresno to Bakersfield - is anyone hopeful?

[Payman Kamali]

Hi All,

I've been following some of the news on the High-Speed Rail project planned for Fresno to Bakersfield. (see https://www.hsr.ca.gov/high_speed_rail/project_sections/fresno_bakersfield.aspx and https://www.fresnobee.com/news/politics-government/article229908329.html)

Does anyone have any updates on this? have they started building this out around town in Fresno?

And is anyone hopeful that it will be completed, and if it could actually inject positive growth into Fresno/Central Valley?

Thanks.

[Payman Kamali]

@Chad Deihl, thanks for the first hand info, its good to hear that the work is under way, and they are indeed making progress.

@Sanjeev Advani, that's good to know that the investments into infrastructure in Bakersfield are paying off.  I'm looking to invest in Fresno.  What I like about Fresno is that the crime rate is slowly going down[1], that its a large city with potential for opportunity, that the city is investing in cleaning up the downtown Fresno area through a revitalization program[2])

What I would hope for with the bullet train from Fresno-Bakersfields is new job and growth opportunities in both cities through more mobility, which would eventually translate into more real estate opportunities.

I agree that the parts of the plan they took out which would have connected Central Valley with San Francisco and LA would have brought the most opportunity, but I am somewhat hopeful that if they show some progress and ROI in the reduced scope, that the other plans could get picked back up at some point.

[1]https://abc30.com/fresno-crime-rates-drop/3599901/

[2]https://revitalization.org/article/fresno-ca-shifts-decades-dumb-sprawl-smart-downtown-revitalization/