I'm glad someone has noticed this. The farmers of the Central Valley are beginning to lose interest in farming, as the water runs out. They would like to sell their farms to developers. The developers would like to build hundreds of square miles of cheap, crackerbox communities, each crackerbox with two cars parked outside it, because at that low population density you can't have public transit.

The problem is that, in order to sell the houses, you need buyers who have jobs. There aren't enough jobs in the Central Valley; they are all in the metropolitan communities on the coast. That's where the train comes in. The residents of these sprawl communities will commute to the coastal cities each day to work, then back home at day's end. All at taxpayers' expense.

The French comparison is not too helpful. The train from Paris to Lyon goes from Paris to Lyon, period, and both Paris and Lyon are substantial cities, not suburbs. The train does not stop on the way at Orleans, Dijon, Macon, and so forth; but the California train will be stopping along the way at these small towns, each to be a source of sprawl.