California’s High-Speed Rail Yields the Greatest Accessibility Gains to the Most Vulnerable Communities

A major criticism of California’s high-speed rail project is that it will mainly serve urban elites and that low-income people and people of color likely won’t be able to afford the fares. Also, the project may benefit the middle-income  group the least since the proposed station locations, usually in or near city centers, will probably serve high- and low-income populations better than middle-income families. Besides these arguments, however, there are very few studies that have analyzed the equity impacts of California’s high-speed rail project. Current studies have either focused on benefits to California residents as a whole with little consideration to the specific opportunities for how high- speed rail will improve the lives of marginalized groups; or only studied the disproportionate adverse impacts received by marginalized groups.