Courtesy of Reanna Bergman

The state’s plan to route the California bullet train through some of the richest agricultural land in the Central Valley has encountered intense and unexpected opposition.

It even roiled last week’s Kings Fair in Hanford, where the lavender “people’s choice” ribbon in the photo contest went to a picture of a bullet train running through a ranch-style home.

Winning photographer Reanna Bergman said she created the image on her computer, combining a publicity photo of the bullet train with a shot of the house in Hanford she shares with her husband and three kids.


As often happens, art was inspired by life: The Bergmans learned recently that the state High-Speed Rail Authority’s right of way goes through their living room. The image sums up her feelings about the situation, she said.

When she entered the photo in the fair, “I didn’t even know if (the judges) would accept it – it’s a collage, or whatever you want to call it,” she said in a phone interview.

“But when I got down there, they were really excited about it, because the King’s Fair people are anti-high-speed rail.”

It wasn’t supposed to be this way.

The rail authority presumed that its $45 billion construction project would face environmental and political opposition in the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles basin. Rail authority officials chose to build the first segment next year in the valley because they were confident the project would be welcome.

But as a panel of rail experts, called the peer review group, noted recently, when it comes to the bullet train, “local opposition emerges when any route approaches finalization.” 

In the valley south of Fresno, the issue is the right of way. Farmers presumed the bullet train would run along the Highway 99 corridor to Bakersfield.

Instead, the route

Article source: http://feeds.stateline.org/~r/StatelineorgRss-Transportation/~3/eDomdALWXQU/high-speed-rail-route-continues-draw-central-valley-farmers-ire-11512