A new report by California’s High-Speed Rail Authority suggests the state could save billions of dollars by resequencing the planned Bakersfield-to-Merced segment of the bullet train.
That could include eliminating Merced as an initial operating stop on the bullet train route, despite longstanding plans going back more than a decade to build a station in the city’s downtown as part of the first segment.
Some of the alternative route options included in the report have the train traveling instead to Gilroy from Bakersfield or Palmdale, in order to more directly connect with the electrified Caltrain commuter-rail line that serves the San Francisco Peninsula…