It’s Not The End Of High Speed Rail In California – It’s A Change In Direction

California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) began his State of the State address yesterday by noting the state’s “record-breaking” surplus, the addition of more than 3 million jobs to the local economy, and the overall rise of statewide wages — but shifted quickly towards ending his predecessor’s decade-long dream for a high speed rail network connecting San Francisco and Los Angeles.  “The current project as planned would cost too much and take too long,” he said. “There has been too little oversight and not enough transparency.”

Conservative writers have been quick to mark this as a significant blow to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Edward J. Markey’s Green New Deal. The resolution, which was introduced to the house and senate last Thursday, has received much publicity for advocating investment in high-speed rail. Now, the abandonment of the L.A. to San Francisco project, after receiving billions in federal grant programs, is drawing comparisons to Pres. Barack Obama’s own shortcomings in regards to rail development. But commentary bemoaning the impossibility of high-speed rail in America, and the failure of California’s Democratic leadership in seeing the project through, flat-out ignores the fact that a significant portion of the project will continue. As Gov. Newsom noted, high-speed rail from Merced to Bakersfield in the San Joaquin Valley is still under development.

Ambitious transportation plans have proven themselves valuable as PR stunts, not only in politics, but increasingly, in the private sector. Last December, Elon Musk unveiled The Boring Company’s first L.A. tunnel with plenty of fanfare and promise—but legitimate skepticism and the realities of community politics have already slowed-down progress. For a far more quixotic example, take the heavily criticized (yet widely trumpeted) Mars One project, which looked to transport humans to the Red Planet for the “biggest media event of all time.” Reports this week indicate the company, led by Bas Lansdorp of the Netherlands, filed for bankruptcy sometime in January.

While the flashy examples of Musk’s Hyperloop and Lansdorp’s euro-martian odyssey might be worlds away from taxpayer-funded public transportation in California, one thing is for sure: there will be scant national coverage of the high speed rail line from Merced to Bakersfield. Major stories that prey on commuter angst and the daydreams of tech-reporters make for great headlines, but significant opportunities for improving national transportation can be found not in other planets or global cities, but in our rural and suburban backyard.

In his article “Nationwide High Speed Rail Doesn’t Make Much Sense for the United States,”  investor and writer Glenn Luk makes several notable points to support his argument. According to Luk, the neverending suburbs surrounding American cities, the lack of density over great swathes of the continent, and the dominance of unbudging freight transport companies over the national rail network seriously complicate the prospect of national high-speed rail. His comparison of the European and Chinese mainlands, with heavily developed interiors and “webbed” networks connecting major economic hubs, contrasts starkly against the configuration of the United States: where nearly all cities with over 1 million inhabitants straddle the cardinal borders of the nation.

Even landlocked states crisscrossed (and culturally defined) by their railroads have struggled to implement basic commuter systems—let alone high-speed networks. In Colorado, hopes for commuter rail along the Front Range Corridor have been slugging along for years, while New Mexico’s relatively new Rail Runner Express has suffered from starkly decreasing ridership numbers since its inception. In Texas, a privately funded initiative to build high-speed rail between Dallas and Houston is struggling with attaining eminent domain permissions  necessary to commence the project.

But investing in the growth of suburban and rural America,  especially in economically significant regions such as the San Joaquin Valley, could allow for the development of more dense, “webbed” communities that could feasibly support the expensive rail networks which we envy from other parts of the world. Furthermore, improving transportation between smaller communities in the interior could do much to alleviate the increasing urban/rural divide that afflicts this country, while also providing amenities to make these communities more attractive for business and migration. This, in turn, could ease the social and economic pressures that are causing the extraordinary rise of living-costs in the nation’s largest metropolises—including San Francisco and L.A.

Since the San Joaquin Valley represents the central segment of the hypothesized San Francisco-L.A. high speed rail—the decision to proceed with the Merced-Fresno-Bakersfield high speed rail is a forward-looking one. If its completion spurs real-estate investment and the invigoration of a region that has been subject to much environmental and economic stress since the recession, extraordinary rewards could be in store for the state of California and the future of national high-speed rail connectivity.

This post first appeared on Forbes.com. To see the original, click here.