They would have to build new track across the California Coast Ranges[1]. Mountain crossings are expensive and difficult, and mountain crossings that need to maintain the curve and grade requirements of HSR are even more so. The crazy cost overruns for mountain crossings (this one and the Tehachapi Pass) are what killed the project.

This new de-scoped HSR project is basically "the part of HSR phase 1 that doesn't require us to cross any mountains". In California that's obviously very limiting.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Coast_Ranges

That $400k house will immediately go up in price. You see this in Chinese cities.

New train station? Congrats. Now you're finding a new place because your landlord is selling.

Alternatively now someone in Fresno who makes $25/hour doing something blue collar has access to a market where that same job may pay $40/hour. There is a huge amount of pent up demand for blue collar jobs in the Bay area that is being stifled due to the lack of appropriate living arrangements for people making non-six-figure incomes (especially for families).

Right now critics will label it the ghost train to nowhere. At least if it connected to San Jose it would prove somewhat useful.

Perhaps its better to never buy the rolling stock or hire staff? Otherwise there will be stories in the press about trains running where the staff outnumbers the passengers?

> New train station? Congrats. Now you're finding a new place because your landlord is selling.

And that's ok because you can get onto that same train and look for affordable appartments anywhere in the train's catchment area, which now is far larger than when you first started looking for a rental.

  ride the train a half hour

For Fresno to SJ, that would mean averaging 300mph. There was no planned segment that would have made anything near that speed.