The recent debate surrounding California’s transit future has reverberated statewide. But here in the Central Valley, the upheaval — like the bullet train itself — is real. Houses have been boarded up, businesses moved, vineyards torn out, a highway realigned.
Lee Harris walks down a street in Fairmead, Calif., a tight-knit community that worked with officials to reduce the effect of high-speed rail. It now faces the most immediate uncertainties after state plans for the project have been curtailed. through the Central Valley, her head jerked back.“Merced to Bakersfield? The good Lord himself can’t make sense of that,” she said. “After all our tears and making peace?”.
There is no library or market or gas station here; only three buildings in the town of about 1,500, including the church, aren’t people’s homes. Sheds lean, grass grows through porch slats and rains leave deep puddles on dirt and gravel roads. Barbara Nelson runs a food and clothing bank for the less fortunate and homeless in Fairmead called Miss Gracie's Closet after her mother, Gracie Pinkney. She cofounded the nonprofit group Friends of Fairmead, which lobbied to keep the neighborhood from being leveled by high-speed rail.
“I’m going to tell her, ‘Sister Hughes, your house is safe.’ And we’ll find some other way to get our community center.” Randy Van Eyk was born and raised on a dairy farm outside of nearby Hanford. His wife, Anne, grew up in rural Northern California. They lived in the city of Visalia for 10 years, saving for a place like this — a big house on a country road where they live with their 7-year old daughter, Maddie, a Labrador retriever named Snickers and a giant cat.
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