State government and transportation leaders spoke this winter about the completion of a California high-speed rail facility next to a state highway in the Central Valley as proof the project is on the cusp of becoming a real, visible system — at least between the Kern County and Fresno-Madera areas.
They declared it a turning point for the controversial project that’s yet to produce actual train tracks in the 17 years since California voters first approved it.
Gov. Gavin Newsom called it the arrival of “the phase everybody’s been waiting for.” California High-Speed Rail Authority CEO Ian Choudri described it as something that was no longer a concept or a plan, but something that “is physically here.”…