Bullet train board approves Valley route — with backlash
The California Highspeed Rail Authority board voted unanimously Tuesday on a route that may ultimately connect the San Joaquin Valley with San Jose – though it didn’t come without some backlash from community groups.
The board’s preferred alternative crosses a grassland area of western Merced County and continues with a tunnel through Pacheco Pass. Additionally, on the route, high-speed trains would ultimately share upgraded and electrified tracks with the Caltrain commuter rail system between San Jose and Gilroy.
But the vote also took heed of concerns raised over the course of a twohour hearing over the potential danger of atgrade railroad crossings in communities along the San Francisco Peninsula.
Some residents also worry about the potential impacts of an even busier rail corridor on neighborhoods in San Jose, Morgan Hill and Gilroy. Three additional alternatives included variations of elevated tracks, embankments or different routes through San Jose, Morgan Hill and Gilroy.
Boris Lipkin, the rail authority’s regional director for Northern California, emphasized Tuesday’s vote was only one part of a lengthy process that’s far from over.
Plus, Lipkin said all four options will receive equal attention and scrutiny in a detailed environmental impact report.
“This is not the beginning of the end or the end of the beginning,” Lipkin told the board. “This is not a final decision.”
All four options share common characteristics between Gilroy and western Merced County – including a 13-mile tunnel between Casa de Fruta and a site north of San Luis Reservoir, and tracks perched atop embankments across the Grasslands Wildlife Management Area northeast of Los Banos.
Hurdles for proposed segments
The environmental impact report for the four alternatives is just one among many hurdles that will require board approval before a Valley to Gilroy/san Jose route becomes a reality.
Right now, the state’s primary focus is pursuing scaled down plans to establish high speed rail between Bakersfield and Madera. That construction’s ongoing.
Until state money is available to build high speed rail from the Valley to San Jose, however, those plans will remain on the backburner.
Regardless, environmental studies will continue for all remaining segments between San Francisco and Southern California to prepare for future work, if and when that money becomes available.
In the aftermath of Tuesday’s vote, an environmental analysis will be required to assess the effects of each of the four options on neighborhoods, including traffic, noise, vibration and displacement of homes and businesses.
Potential impacts on environmental resources, including the grasslands and other areas, will also be addressed.
The environmental report would also detail
measures the rail authority can take to minimize any negative effects. A draft of the environmental report is expected in early 2020 for public comment; certification of the environmental work and a final decision on the route would come in early 2021, Lipkin said. Reasons behind vote The state’s analysis indicated Alternative 4 – the option that received board support – would displace fewer homes, businesses, community or public facilities and agricultural acreage than the other three options.
It would also have less impact on waterways or wetlands and habitats for endangered or threatened wildlife and plants, and the least effects on existing parkland resources, the analysis concluded.
It would also cost tens of billions of dollars less to build than a system that originally envisioned fully dedicated and gradeseparated tracks for highspeed trains along the Peninsula.
The rail authority’s preference for a blended or shared system emerged in 2012, after the rail agency engaged in “value engineering” to find ways to bring down the price.
But some in the audience felt the price-cutting strategy amounted to what Danny Garza, a resident of San Jose’s Gardner neighborhood south of downtown, called “a bait-and-switch” after promises made a decade ago for a system with elevated tracks to avoid affecting their established neighborhoods.