If the leaders of California’s High-Speed Rail Authority are to be believed, by 2029 Bakersfield residents will be able to hop on a bullet train bound for LA’s Union Station or San Francisco’s Transbay Terminal. That’s if all goes according to plan, for a project that still doesn’t have enough funding to finish the job. But regardless of the pace of construction, there’s still a lot of decisions the state needs to make in the next 11 years in order to prepare – things like what route the train will take and where stations should be located. In Bakersfield, both of those are still unresolved issues. In 2014 the rail authority selected a route following the BNSF railroad into the city, with a station site downtown at Truxton and Union Avenues, near the current Amtrak station. That drew opposition from Mercy Hospital, and the City of Bakersfield, which sued over impacts to the city’s corporation yard, the convention center and the Mill Creek Linear Park. As a result of the lawsuit, the
https://mediad.publicbroadcasting.net/p/kvpr/files/styles/big_story/public/201801/bakersfieldstation.jpg