Commentary: Connecting-regional-passenger-rail Services In California’s San Joaquin Valley Chronically Lacking. That Needs To Change
In the future, California is poised to be one of the best-passenger-rail-connected states. Said significantly improved passenger-rail service will be available statewide and with significantly greater reach. That’s awesome news!
Currently, two high-speed-rail projects are in the works: California high-speed rail (CAHSR) being built in the state’s fertile and flat San Joaquin Valley on 171 miles of right-of-way between Bakersfield and Merced and in the 218-mile-long Las Vegas-to-Rancho Cucamonga service lane in both Nevada and California.
Whereas the Brightline West effort will link up with regional commuter-rail connector Metrolink at the combined Brightline/Metrolink Rancho Cucamonga station and whereas the CAHSR service, at least when service first begins — which is estimated to happen no sooner than 2030 — will have a regional rail connection in Merced and Madera only (Valley Rail and Amtrak in the former and just Amtrak in the latter case), the main Fresno and Bakersfield stations, due to where these will be located, will have to go or do without. At least for the time being.
This is a deficit situation at both the Bakersfield and Fresno and Kings/Tulare stations that will hopefully be corrected soon.
Having connecting regional passenger rail service is important, especially in the San Joaquin Valley due to its being plagued by notoriously bad air quality, which is among some of the nation’s worst, in fact. Having connecting regional-rail service offered in the locations someday — where, incidentally, it will be lacking on CAHSR’s opening day — will be a blessing, a godsend.
Such connections at stations will do much and go far to reduce the number of motor vehicle trips to and from stations. And, by extension, air quality will improve by virtue of this.
As a person who appreciates and values rail travel, I can’t imagine traveling on a world-class bullet-train to a station somewhere only to find out that my mobility options from that location are more limited. Limited to foot and motor vehicle only, the latter via that provided through ride-hailing or taxi or rental car or transit bus options.
Now with respect to lack of connecting passenger-rail capability, I once attended a workshop in Fresno at a high school, the purpose of which was to think up ways to help clean up Fresno’s notoriously dirty air problem. This was on Nov. 7, 2012, four years after the majority of the state electorate voted to approve the high-speed-rail project in California.
Though there were only 100 workshop participants in attendance, only me in my convened and separate workshop group (there were 13 in all) and one other group mentioned light rail transit (LRT) as a practical means to help an area improve its overall air-quality condition. It works in that regard as long as the LRT system is sufficiently patronized/used.
At one point, when I suggested LRT as being a viable option, one participant in the group I was a part of seemed so incensed at the very thought.
A dozen years later, and metropolitan and area air-quality are still out of health-standards compliance for both ozone- and fine-particulate-matter pollution and from all indications things will remain that way for the foreseeable future.
Electrified high-speed rail is an attractive option when it comes to providing travel services as well as being a means of helping reduce environmental impact as well as assisting in curbing roadway and airway congestion.
It’s time that we be smart about connected regional commuter-rail capability. Nowhere in the 24,000-square-mile San Joaquin Valley does such service even exist except for that which is in the Valley’s northern portion around Stockton in the form of the Altamont Corridor Express or ACE train, where, air quality just so happens to be markedly better than that which is typically found in the central and southern Valley portions.
Hmmm. Could there be an improved-air-quality, regional-passenger-rail-service connection, I wonder?!
Updated: Jan. 18, 2025 at 7:46 a.m. PST.
All material copyrighted 2025, Alan Kandel. All Rights Reserved.