They’re more than a little stuck: the only rational thing to do is to finish all the planned projects — anything else would be extremely wasteful, and unlike in the US, Spain’s government isn’t totally stupid.

Part of the issue with entrance and egress gradiants is that you have to go further in vertical distance when going down then when going up, so a tunnel normally is longer than an elevated structure when both are clearing a road that is crossing at grade.

As others have already pointed out, the claim that there are no construction standard suitable for berms built in seismically active areas is simply a bold-faced lie. Whether its a lie because you are misleading or because you have been misled – that’s really beside the point, isn’t it?

But I stand by what I said earlier: If there’s no station in Fullerton, we should consider a different ROW.

I don’t know exactly why CHSRA excluded those alignments, but if the reasons you listed are why, I don’t think they’re good enough.

Wrt ex-Pacific Electric ROW:

Just because poor people live in neighborhoods around a former rail ROW, doesn’t mean they have an environmental justice claim. I don’t think any eminent domain would be needed against them for that alignment, and a station somewhere along that area would also be possible. And even if Disney was uncooperative, they’re a single, private, corporate landowner, the state could force an elevated line through.

Wrt I-5:

I don’t think it’d need to be elevated the whole way, just the part in Anaheim. You’re they probably rejected it for cost reasons, but that was before Pringle and Anaheim NIMBYs started demanding a Fullerton-Anaheim tunnel on everyone else’s back. Even if the whole I-5 alignment had to be above grade, aerials are still cheaper than tunnels.