By Tim Sheehan in The Sacramento Bee

February 18, 2016

The latest business plan for California’s high-speed rail system confirms a proposed change in direction – rumored for several weeks – that would have the first passenger-carrying trains head to the Silicon Valley when operations commence in the mid-2020s.

The California High-Speed Rail Authority’s draft 2016 business plan, released Thursday evening, calls for the development of an operating route for the statewide bullet-train system from Kern County north through the San Joaquin Valley and then west to San Jose. It’s a major strategic pivot for the rail agency, which in its 2012 and 2014 versions of the business plan had proposed a route from Merced southward through the Valley to Bakersfield, then southeast to Palmdale and on to the San Fernando Valley and Los Angeles.