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December 18
1929 - Swift justice: Thomas Vernon sentenced to life in prison for Saugus train derailment & robbery 1 month earlier [story]
Tom Vernon


The California High-Speed Rail Authority has released a project section update for the Palmdale to Burbank line of the $10.6 billion project.

The Authority is continuing its environmental review of the Palmdale to Burbank project section.

In 2018, the Authority will continue working with our stakeholders in the region to advance planning in the area and work toward identifying the preferred alternative among the three proposed routes, one of which goes through the Santa Clarita Valley.

As has been its practice, the Authority will conduct public meetings to share the latest information, receive additional community input, and present the project’s next steps in advance of presenting to the Authority’s Board of Directors.

No Board action will be taken prior to the presentation of relevant information to the public for ongoing comments and public input.

Project Section Background
The Palmdale to Burbank Project Section is part of the first phase of the California High-Speed Rail System connecting the Antelope Valley to the San Fernando Valley to bring high-speed rail service to the urban Los Angeles area.

The approximately 40-mile project section will connect stations at the Palmdale Transportation Center to a new high-speed rail station at the Hollywood Burbank Airport.

The corridor travels through extremely diverse areas from rural and mountainous areas to suburban and dense urban environments.

Check out the HSR projects and sections interactive map.

Information from the 2016 community meetings can be found on the project website here.

High Speed Rail -- Palmdale to Burbank proposed routes

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36 Comments

  1. Mike Duryea says:

    Billions over budget, 7 years behind schedule, doesn’t comply with the Proposition that was voted on, based on lies, environmental lawsuits up the butt. This thing is a waste of time & money. It needs to be scrapped!! All this wasted money would sure fix our freeway system.

    • We could probably fix all roads, double or triple all public school funding, house the entire CA homeless population and have enough left over to build a statue to everyone who helped found Santa Clarita for what this stupid train for nobody has already cost. ?

      • Claude says:

        The annual cost of construction is a rounding error in the highway budget. If HSR were scrapped and the money sent back to the Federal government it would make no difference to the highways.
        Additionally, if all goes very badly, the train will cost $70-80 billion between SF and LA. The growing population will need $100-120 billion in highway and airport expansion if the train isn’t built.
        And HSR routinely operates at a profit, including the semi-fast Acela between Washington and Boston. Highways only manage to cover about half their total cost through gas tax and other dedicated revenue.
        So we can spend more money to build something that will bleed money from the budget but make you happy or spend less money to build something that will generate extra revenue which can be used to fix bridges. But you won’t like it.

    • Mike Duryea says:

      That’s probably true.

  2. Jase Yo says:

    There’s a very large flushing some, Moonbeam is doing awesome

  3. Total waste of of money.

  4. Hurry up and build this!

    • Why? It will do NOTHING to ease congestion on freeways

    • William Reel says:

      For your great great great great great great great retard grandkids

    • No William Reel! For YOUR great great great great great great great RETARD grandkids. You couldn’t have left it as “For your grandkids”? Wow. No respect for others opinions. Your reply was 100% pointless.

    • Ellen Blondini Murphy do you drive the route from Palmdale to Burbank Monday – Thursday? Your reply implies that you do not. Therefore you have no clue as to the effect of how this train will indeed ease the congestion on the freeways from the 14 past of 5 and 210 interchange then threw the 5 in the 118 then also pass the five in the 170 split. If you don’t know how congested this freeway really and truly is then maybe you should do a little more research before you make a reply like you did. I drive that freeway 5 days out of the week The only days that are not congested or Friday Saturday and Sunday. What takes me normally 24 minutes to drive takes me an hour during the congested days so for your information yes it will do a lot to ease the congestion on those specific freeways. So please do your research read up on the freeways read up on the traffic read up on the amount of accident and maybe you will educate yourself on the necessity of this train.

    • My gosh Connie Villasenor some people lack education. I got your back !!!

    • Charlotte Young maybe you should do so me research. The bullet train will not be making any stops between Burbank & Palmdale. So unless you walk to Burbank or to Palmdale, again it will do NOTHING to ease congestion on the freeways. FACT. If you don’t like you’re commute, I suggest the metro link. It’s already in service, unlike the bullet train which most likely never will be.

    • Ellen Blondini Murphy I am fully aware that it will not make any stops, that is exactly why this is a good idea. Most commuters don’t take the metrolink because it takes longer and there isn’t really any savings taking it. The only benefit of the metrolink is for those who don’t want to drive or who do not currently have a vehicle. The commuters have to chose to lose an extra 2 hrs of their day just for travel on public transportation. Not to mention the 3 new communities being built in Santa Clarita about to cause even more conjestion. Imagine 1200 new homes and each home having an average of 3 driversn that’s a potential 3600 more vehicles on the roads in out of town all trying to get onto the same on ramps. It will take an average of 20 minutes longer to travel from the metrolink on top of the original 10 minute commute. So please do the math. The non stop from Palmdale to Burbank is a great benefit, no stops means less time and perhaps 200-300 less cars on the freeway. You’ll see. When the train is finally up and running, you’ll see the difference. It WILL make a difference.

      • Leonard Gomez says:

        Charlotte Young, you are correct, I live in Palmdale and work in downtown LA. I take the Metrolink and it takes 1 hour on the train. I can’t wait for this bullet train, I will definitely buy a monthly pass to downtown and be to work in I think 18 minutes

    • Thanks Charlotte Young they obviously have no clue or brains. You are exactly right. Thanks girl ❤

  5. Trudy Trump says:

    Just what we need a “bullet” train to nowhere right through earthquake country ??‍♀️ time to stop the crazy train

  6. The biggest scam against Californians since the Owens Valley

  7. Lol they have a mile of track laid and are billions over budget. ?? it’s going no where fast.

  8. It’s a miracle that long ago california was able to put in a pacific railway system in the late 1800s. Now we can’t even complete a mile of bullet train track without going way over budget

  9. William Reel says:

    Stupid California Voter Dot Com

  10. Ken Macofsky says:

    To late for me. I moved away?

  11. PUT THAT MONEY TOWARD FEEDING CHILDREN, HOUSING THE HOMELESS, AND CANCER RESEARCH, SO ANOTHER KID DOESN’T HAVE TO DIE BEFORE HIS TIME, OR PERFENT DEMITIA AND ALTIMERZERS, TRY TO SAVE LIVES NOT DESTORY THEM IN A TRAIN CRASH

  12. Jim Sherman says:

    HIGH SPEED FAIL !!!!
    WAKE UP CALIFORNIA

  13. Pay no attention to the naysayers. The project is over budget because we’re doing something that’s never been done before, in a geography famously hostile to rail construction. . Once it’s done and we’re going by train from LA to San Francisco in three hours; when Merced and Fresno are exurbs for the Bay Area; when Bakersfield is full of LA commuters; when we’ve preserved vital airspace for long-haul flights; when the economy of the Central Valley develops to rival that of the coast; THEN we’ll have a chance to see what the investment was worth. When that happens, we’ll wonder how we ever lived without High Speed Rail. Investment in major infrastructure projects requires courage and faith in the future. I urge everyone to develop both.

  14. How about Santa Clarita to Las Vegas ?!?!?!?

  15. Nancy Crosby says:

    Please keep me updated

  16. Jacob says:

    how about building a new freeway from palmdale to burbank/pasadena/LA?

    14 fwy is so bad

  17. Eddy E Duarte says:

    It would make more sense to connect a direct rout freeway from Palmdale to Pasadena. just look at the connections available for extensions of highways. you have the 2, 210, 110, 710. Just look at the possibilities this would create in flow of traffic. If you connect all these we take a load off the 5/14/405

  18. Claude says:

    A direct freeway from Palmdale to Pasadena sounds like a great idea if you don’t look at a map. Unfortunately, the San Gabriel mountains are in the way,, so you’ll have to dynamite and bulldoze a lot of the Angeles National Forest between the South Antelope Valley and the Deukmejian Wilderness Park. It might be better to just leave the current road running through that area.
    You might also ask some traffic engineers about the results of expanding freeways to reduce congestion. Mostly they just shuffle the congestion around, but within 5 years congestion levels are back to where they started and nothing long term has been accomplished.
    The expansion of the 405 is a good example of the problem. Within a year after completing the expansion the traffic speeds were 1 mph slower than they had been before starting construction.

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