Revisiting of rail route angers cities
| Monday, May 23 2011 11:54 AM
Last Updated Monday, May 23 2011 11:55 AM
The California High Speed Rail Authority's decision to revisit sending a bullet train over the Grapevine has communities throughout the Antelope and San Joaquin valleys confused and angry.
"I don't think there's one good reason that's been given as to why it's being re-evaluated," said Mel Lane, president of the Greater Antelope Valley Economic Alliance. "When people voted, they voted for it to be going through here, not the Grapevine."
Passed in 2008, Proposition 1A authorized the sale of $9.95 billion in bonds to support the project and laid out restrictions on how it should proceed. Among other things, the train must be able to carry passengers from Los Angeles to San Francisco in no more than two hours and 40 minutes.
Six years ago the Grapevine route was studied but ruled out because of cost and logistical and environmental issues, among them contending with dangerous seismic fault lines.
But the authority has since determined that laying tracks through the Tehachapi Mountains and Antelope Valley would require more tunneling than anticipated, and there are fault lines there, too. Earlier this month, the authority voted to spend $750,000 to study the Grapevine option again because it could potentially save 25 miles, nine minutes of travel time and more than $1 billion in taxpayer money.
The rail authority expects to take about four months to conduct a "conceptual" study of the Grapevine alternative. Meanwhile, engineers continue to plan the Antelope Valley alignment. It could be several years before construction begins on any route linking Bakersfield with Sylmar.
Lebec-based Tejon Ranch Co. opposes the Grapevine proposal because it could endanger parts or all of its $2 billion mountain village development east of Interstate 5 near Frazier Park. The publicly traded company moved forward with its project with the understanding that the rail authority did not want to run tracks up the Grapevine.
The company's senior vice president of real estate, Joseph Drew, said that if the rail authority is really concerned about saving money, then right-of-way costs clearly point to the Antelope Valley option as a better choice.
"The cheap (route alternative) is going out through the desert," he said.
Prior to the decision to give the Grapevine another look, the city of Santa Clarita had supported the Antelope Valley alignment. That may change now because if the Grapevine is selected, the city could potentially get a rail station.
Santa Clarita Mayor Marsha McLean said she personally is waiting to take a position on which route to support until after the new study is completed.
"I just need to see what they come back with," she said. "Whatever is going to benefit our residents the most is the system I'm in favor of."
But McLean added that "it's kind of late in the game to be changing things. In my opinion they should have done their homework right from the beginning."
The city of Palmdale, which has been preserving right of way for the project and paid $700,000 for its own study on the economic impact of sending the train through town, wouldn't rule out litigation to prevent the alignment from moving west.
"We're going to look at all options," said Palmdale Mayor Jim Ledford.
He called building a system that ignores potential commuters a "glaring omission" that would suck ridership out of a system that many already expect to lose money.
"It defies the logic of a business plan," he said. "In the real world, business customers would be paramount in your thinking. They're relying on San Francisco to Los Angeles as their reason, but everyone knows that's not going to be enough.
"It's a huge step backward."
Curt Pringle, chairman of the California High-Speed Rail Authority board, told people at a luncheon in Bakersfield last week that the rail authority has to weigh running the alignment through dense population centers against keeping costs down and being good stewards of taxpayer money.
"That is a struggle that you have with that balance," he said.
Lancaster deputy city manager Jason Caudle, in a telephone interview afterward, was incredulous.
"You end up putting a route through cities that don't want it at the expense of cities that do. It makes no sense," he said.
Both routes have logistical hurdles.
The Antelope Valley alignment is more developed, so that route would either dislocate existing buildings -- including homes and businesses -- or have to go underground.
Either route would pass through Bakersfield, although there are several routes under consideration here, too.
With an estimated price tag of $43 billion, the high-speed rail project proposes to link Anaheim with San Francisco in 2020. It is expected to begin construction in the second half of next year.
-- Californian staff writer John Cox contributed to this report.
