we do a terrible job of corridor preservation in the states. lots of converting old rail right of ways to trails or redeveloping them. the utility of simply lea

we do a terrible job of corridor preservation in the states. lots of converting old rail right of ways to trails or redeveloping them. the utility of simply leaving them empty, especially in urban areas, is hard to overstate. probably the example in the bay is the dumbarton line, which has been preserved and in a world where CAHSR wasn't politically compromised would be the route off of the caltrain towards the altamont pass. the altamont alignment is technically superior to the chosen pacheco alignment on all metrics (cost, speed, operational constraints), but pacheco was chosen due to lobbying by san jose politicians, who, suffering from a massive inferiority complex, demanded that podunk san jose's diridon intergalactic was on the main line and not served by a branch. that decision, btw, pretty much single-handedly compromises the utility of CAHSR. it severely constraints the tph into SF, makes the SF-sacramento trip uncompetitive, and adds billions in unnecessary infrastructure costs another example is the vasona branch, which branches off the caltrain right of way around cal ave, and slated to be used for a BART line to los gatos during the early days of BARTs development.