JJJ, the man you are arguing with is one of the many members of the team you are disparaging.
I don't mean to come off as combative or insulting, and if that's how my comment appeared, I apologize.
I have just been following this project for the past few years, including reading almost every publicly available document and have not found the answers to my questions.
I've found that the best way to prevent nimby-style opposition is to cancel any misinformation before it begins. Once a talking point against a project is established, it's hard to kill. A recent california example would be the "rail to nowhere" which was repeated not just in local press, but in papers across the country. A ludicrous argument, but since it wasn't stamped out BEFORE becoming a talking point, it became hard to dispute false article after article.
Another example would be the Ohio HSR, which was constantly criticized on the "39mph average speed"....which again, was a pure falsehood.
And going back a couple of decades, the infamous mcdonalds coffee case, which the majority of the population holds up as a frivolous case, but was actually gross negligence on the part of mcdonalds, not someone digging for money and a crazy court handing it over.
So going back to the original point, either the HSR authority has a clear, thought out plan on how to handle the San Joaquin, but has not presented the case to the public....or they have nothing, and are hiding the fact that they hope the entire HSR line is built and people forget about the san joaquin.