The cities of Palo Alto, Menlo Park, and Atherton, along with five environmental and citizens groups, filed suit Monday to stop the proposed high-speed rail that will rip through their quiet enclaves, if and when its built. The towns have banded together to call bullshit on an environmental impact report produced by the California High-Speed Rail Authority, claiming that the report shows inflated ridership numbers. In legalese, here's what they said in the suit, "The defective and inaccurate ridership and revenue information ... resulted in the [Authority] not being able to make accurate and informed choices among various project alternatives and in not being able to properly or accurately determine the financial feasibility of various project alternatives and mitigation measures."

As the San Jose Mercury News reports, the towns are equally worried about the noise as they are about the probability that the project will force the seizure of homes along the CalTrain corridor, through the use of eminent domain. An earlier lawsuit, filed two years ago by Menlo Park and Atherton regarding plans to bring the train through the Pacheco Pass, was dismissed.