No resolution in sight on high-speed rail route
| Wednesday, Sep 01 2010 06:35 PM
Last Updated Wednesday, Sep 01 2010 06:39 PM
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Eight years ago, when high-speed rail was just another $40 billion idea, Kern County officials pushed for building the Bakersfield passenger station near Meadows Field.
But city officials hated the idea, so they lobbied hard to have the station located downtown in order to maximize the economic benefits the station promised.
Years later, after extensive planning and engineering, various alignment options were whittled down to two routes proposed by the Rail Authority -- the red and the blue -- that would cut east and west through downtown Bakersfield.
After much consideration, city officials picked the blue route as their favorite, though their decision was merely advisory.
All was well -- for about 15 minutes.
Then earlier this year, someone at Bakersfield's oldest high school awoke to the possibility that a 200-mph train screaming down a 50-foot high elevated track adjacent to the campus might be a distraction, if not an outright hazard, to thousands of students at Bakersfield High.
A protest of sorts was organized, the city council was bombarded with complaints, and in a turnabout of epic proportions, the blue line suddenly appeared to be out of favor with the city because of its proximity to BHS.
None of it may matter in the end. If the bullet train is fully funded and developed, it's unlikely the California High-Speed Rail Authority will choose to spend millions more, blow federal deadlines on groundbreaking, and go back to the drawing board to come up with new route alignments -- though the authority doesn't say so in concrete terms.
"These alignments are continually under review," said Rail Authority spokeswoman Rachel Wall. "We've held six or seven meetings with the high school district."
They've also met with Mercy Hospital officials and others who may be affected by one alignment or the other.
But Wall said the red and blue alignments have been refined already. And with a train moving at such high velocity, there are "mathematical" and "geometric" parameters that cannot be ignored.
In other words, you can't shift direction at 200 mph unless you employ long, gradual curves.
The Authority is talking about "design options" with the Kern High School District, "not necessarily alignment options" to reduce the impact to BHS, Wall said.
Kern High School District spokesman John Teves confirmed that district officials have been in talks with representatives from the Rail Authority.
And that's good, he said. But the district's concerns about student safety cannot be addressed through design changes alone.
"We're concerned about the proximity of the blue line to Bakersfield High," Teves said. "We are communicating the need for the California Department of Education to get involved."
Under current law, the district could not build a school where BHS now stands, Teves said. The railroad tracks -- and the sometimes hazardous cargo the trains carry -- are too close.
That's why district officials are so astounded by the high-speed rail alignment. In their opinion, it's simply not lawful to build more industrial infrastructure in such close proximity to the historic campus.
Bakersfield City Councilman David Couch takes issue with the notion that the council is coming late to the party -- only after the BHS controversy exploded. Couch said he never liked either the red or the blue alignments.
"When we said 'downtown,' we didn't specify what downtown was," he said.
Couch has long preferred a route that generally follows the railroad along Golden State Highway.
It has less impact, yet it still meets the slow-curve criteria needed by the bullet trains, he said. Yes, the "downtown" station would be some blocks east of downtown proper, but downtown would still benefit.
"I have voiced that opinion more than once with the High-Speed Rail Authority," he said. "I'm sure it's in their records."
Meanwhile, the county and the city still appear to be on different pages.
In a letter dated Aug. 31, county supervisors asked the Rail Authority to support the alignment along the Burlington Northern-Santa Fe tracks. The alignment that follows that route most closely is the color blue -- but not BHS blue.
