The California High-Speed Rail Authority is making progress in implementing the high-speed rail, specifically in the section from Palmdale to Burbank.

Earlier this year, Los Angeles County Supervisors Michael D. Antonovich and Sheila Kuehl, along with Los Angeles Councilman Felipe Fuentes, submitted a letter requesting technical studies be completed on the project as soon as possible.

Santa Clarita Mayor, Marsha McLean, addressed some comments that came up during a discussion with the members of the North Los Angeles County Communities Protection Coalition in Santa Clarita.

“During the discussion on the process of receiving timely information from the California High-Speed Rail Authority, CAHSRA, regarding the Palmdale to Burbank Project Section of the California High-Speed Rail Project, it was obvious that there was profound frustration,” said McLean. “There are some routes being proposed that are obviously infeasible due to the devastating impact it will have on communities within the Burbank to Palmdale proposed route.”

The next step members is to reach out to independent technical institutes for studies on the project.

The authority released a progress report stating that these independent studies are expected to be completed by early 2016.

The institutes said to be conducting the studies are the Mineta Transportation Institute at San Jose State University; California State University, Fullerton and University of California, San Diego.

Some community members and Santa Clarita city officials suspect that some aspects of the project have unrealistic deadlines.

“According to recent information reported in news outlets, funding is questionable and timelines are not being met,” McLean said. “We would hope the CAHSRA would provide better communication regarding a realistic timeline and whether the funding is actually available.”

The CHSRA added an engineering team to the project in April 2015.

The authority said the team for the area covering Palmdale to Burbank is set to complete an environmental draft by winter 2016-2017 with a final document available by the end of 2017.