Of course, California HSR is a statewide project, and while cities like Menlo Park and Palo Alto feel they can afford to dismiss the desperate need for jobs in these hard times, other cities can’t. The San Joaquin Valley is one of the hardest hit places in the entire country by this severe recession, and so it’s no wonder that cities there are working hard to bring the HSR maintenance hub to their towns. Over 15 sites have been proposed for the hub, from Gilroy to Stockton and all the way down to Bakersfield.

The city of Fresno, led by Mayor Ashley Swearengin, is mounting one of the most assertive efforts to land the hub. She’s been busy rounding up support from other Valley mayors for a Fresno hub at the US Conference of Mayors meeting. Fresno’s hub would be located near American and Cedar streets by Highway 99. Mayor Swearengin’s support is matched by that of the Fresno Bee, which editorialized in favor of the Fresno hub today:

The Rail Authority calls the operation a “heavy maintenance facility,” but that description doesn’t tell the whole story. This facility will employ 1,500 people, including the rolling stock maintenance staff, train operators, central control supervisors, systemwide engineers and other staff.

It is quite simply the most important economic development project that Fresno County could hope to lure to our community.

That’s why the competition will be stiff, and Fresno County must have a first-class proposal every step of the way. No internal bickering. No local turf battles. We don’t need a repeat of Merced getting the University of California campus because Fresno did not have its act together.

In some of the previous Peninsula threads, local NIMBYs have been dismissing the need for jobs. Such people would be lucky if they were merely laughed out of the room in the San Joaquin Valley. Fresno’s unemployment rate is 17%, as is Modesto and Stockton. Merced’s rate is 20%. Fewer areas in the entire country have been hit harder by this economic crisis than the Valley. If Peninsula NIMBYs think those jobs aren’t necessary, that their concept of urban aesthetics is more important than helping solve the Valley’s unemployment crisis, they need to go to Fresno, Merced, and Stockton and tell people there that to their faces.

Speaking of Merced, support remains strong for using Castle Airport as the hub location:

The Castle site is the only area in the entire Valley that can truly be called an intermodel facility because it is connected to an adjacent airport and a future freeway.

The Atwater-Merced expressway currently in the planning stages already has an existing right of way which can be modified to allow high-speed trains to cross from one alignment to the other.

This property and the future freeway are controlled by a single-public ownership (Merced County).

The Castle site is also uniquely positioned to fly in heavy cargo, which will be necessary since the California High-Speed Rail Authority intends to build and maintain these trains at the site.

But the Castle Airport site works only if the BNSF alignment is used through the Merced area. Although Union Pacific has not exactly been playing nicely, the UPRR alignment is still an option, and while other sites are being considered in Merced, most local support, including from county officials, is coalescing behind Castle Airport.

Further north, the small town of Riverbank, just north of Modesto, is making a push to get an HSR station should the BNSF alignment be chosen instead of the UPRR alignment through central Modesto:

Riverbank City Council members Monday will review whether to challenge Modesto’s presumed lock on the only station between Stockton and Merced. If the council agrees, leaders would make Riverbank’s pitch at Thursday’s hearing.

“I think it’s very feasible, it would make a lot of sense and truly could be a regional hub not just for Riverbank but for the whole area,” Riverbank Mayor Virginia Madueño said….

Riverbank, which sprung up next to a railroad, finished a $9 million upgrade to its downtown four months ago and envisions shopping, offices, a plaza and maybe a sports complex on a former cannery site nearby. A depot on the line that used to serve the cannery could deposit passengers in the middle of the new development, officials say.

“Riverbank was the center of the railroad in Stanislaus County for a long, long time,” City Manager Rich Holmer said. “We want to see that continue.”

Madueño said passengers she’s picked up at Modesto’s Amtrak depot complain about its remote location. “They say it’s off the beaten path and there is nowhere they can walk to — no restaurants or shops, nothing.”

The current Modesto Amtrak station location is certainly not ideal. But from the perspective of Californians For High Speed Rail, the best solution here is a downtown Modesto station to put both Amtrak and HSR services in the city center.

As certain Peninsula cities decide to pursue a classist policy of favoring prosperous homeowners over unemployed workers, Central Valley cities have instead shown they understand what our predecessors understood 75 years ago: that for their communities to recover and thrive, infrastructure projects that bring both short-term and long-term jobs and value must be strongly supported. As of right now I’m completely agnostic on where the maintenance hub should go – but I’m pleased and excited to see the Valley working so hard to get it.