Interested in folk's takes on this--is drawing the lines like this worth it to make the Bay Area better, or is it better to link Fremont to the Tri-Valley to avoid this?
Apologies for not responding earlier. Admittedly I'm not neutral in that one alternative involves an area that I know well and the other an area I've only been to a few times, but I think that linking the Antelope Valley with points northward is obviously better. The connection up to Ridgecrest doesn't involve crossing any mountains except to the extent that connecting Ridgecrest to anywhere involves crossing mountains. Similarly, Tehachapi is surrounded by mountains no matter which way you go, and it's not clear to me that aside from county lines there's a compelling argument that it needs to go with the southern San Joaquin Valley rather than the Antelope Valley.
Upon playing with it further, I have to say that unfortunately Tehachapi cut doesn't quite pan out either. It's possible there's something I'm missing, but the Vallejo/northern Contra Costa district is a good 70,000 or so people over population with no good way to get rid of the excess without slicing up Richmond. I'll continue to play with it but it seems like something has to get screwed in the Bay Area no matter what.
Hopefully I'm missing something but I'm probably not unfortunately.
