California’s high-speed rail boondoggle, which is already a $128 billion joke that has been decades in the making with not a single mile of track carrying a single paying passenger, has managed to find a brand-new way to embarrass the state’s “visionary” political leadership.
This time, it’s not federal funding cuts or blown deadlines doing the damage, but a Central Valley city and a major homebuilder simply refusing to get out of the way, greenlighting 1,200 new homes smack in the middle of the rail authority’s approved route.
California’s beleaguered, over-budget high-speed rail line now has one more thing to worry about: A city and housing developer wants to build homes right in the train’s projected path.
Shafter, a city near Bakersfield, and developer Lennar Homes are plowing ahead with 1,200 homes in the same area off Highway 99 where the state’s rail authority plans to build tracks.
The development, called Gossamer Grove, is a “master-planned community” that will be equipped with a picnic area, playground and dog-walking trails, according to Lennar’s website....
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