Although there has been a lot of drama about the California High-Speed Rail project around the Bay Area (looking at you, Peninsula), the Chronicle reports today that the High-Speed Rail Authority has finally decided where to start laying track. The first 54-mile segment of the system will connect Borden, CA to Corcoran, CA - or as we would describe it to a friend: somewhere outside of Fresno to somewhere else kind of closer to Bakersfield.

Critics who lack the vision and the desire to sip cocktails at 220 miles per hour while the largely forgettable parts of California whiz by have started calling the project "the train to nowhere." Fair enough, but for some perspective this first 54-mile segment would take less than 15 minutes to cover on a full-speed train, so it's kind of insignificant in the grand scheme of the total $43 billion project. Or, as high-speed board vice chairman Tom Umberg compared it to Interstates: "That system started in Missouri." And we all use that system to occasionally take the slow way to LA, don't we?

[Chron]