River may be snag for high-speed rail
The Big Tujunga Wash, among Southern California’s most powerful and least developed rivers, is at ground zero of a growing political battle over the route the California bullet train would take as it enters the Los Angeles basin.
The wash carries more than 5 billion gallons per year along a section that has endangered species, protected habitat, parks and equestrian trails. In big winter storms, giant boulders roll down the river bed, attracting spectators to its banks.
It is here — at the junction of Shadow Hills, Lake View Terrace and other small enclaves of the northeast San Fernando Valley — that the California High Speed Rail Authority may build a quarter-mile-long elevated viaduct, allowing trains to exit a long tunnel through the San Gabriel Mountains as they head toward a future station in Burbank.
But the plan is attracting growing scrutiny by government boards and local citizen groups, who are urging the state to eliminate the route from consideration and instead continue developing an alternative plan that would have the trains approach Burbank in a continuous long tunnel.
The Los Angeles City Council and the Los Angeles Unified School District in the last week have taken initial steps toward adopting motions and resolutions opposing the route, known by the authority as the E2 route. The actions follow a resolution earlier this summer by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors to formally oppose the E2 route.
The bullet train project, which plans to someday connect Los Angeles to San Francisco with 220-mph trains, has always faced a tough problem with getting a rail line into Los Angeles. In its business plan adopted earlier this year, it punted the problem down the road and said it would be the last segment it would build, if it can find a source for about $43.5 billion that it does not now have.
The journey from Bakersfield in the Central Valley to Burbank will require about 36 miles of underground passage, the most challenging tunneling project in the nation’s history.