[KHTS] – High Speed Rail Authority officials are hosting an open house Monday for Santa Clarita.
“These meetings are to update the public on the progress the High Speed Rail Authority is making on the Palmdale to Burbank project section,” said Adeline Yee, spokeswoman for the High Speed Rail Authority.
Here’s a link to a flier about the outreach from the High Speed Rail Authority.
While doors open at 5 p.m., the presentation is expected to start at 6 p.m., Yee said, and there will be project planners, engineer and other High Speed Rail Authority officials on hand to answer questions.
Yee wanted to stress to residents that plans could still change, noting the HSR is still in the preliminary planning phases, and pointing to the changes just in the last year that have come about as a result of the outreach as proof the HSR is listening and responding.
“While we have these conceptual alignments on the maps, these are still not set in stone,” Yee said. “We’re still in the environmental review process — (these routes) could change as we continue to move into our draft environmental report.”
Locally, the plans have faced staunch opposition from most Santa Clarita Valley officials, who have coalesced with the neighboring communities of San Fernando, Acton and Agua Dulce to urge state officials to push the project east and underground as much as possible.
There are four routes being looked at — the least favorable for the officials at previous meeting was a route that heads through San Fernando, and then heads north along Highway 14, coming within throwing distance of Sulphur Springs Elementary in Canyon Country.
At a recent outreach meeting in front of about 1,500 residents at Canyon High. San Fernando Mayor Joel Fajardo said the western route, also known as the SR-14 corridor, splits his city’s historic downtown in half.
City Councilman TimBen Boydston expressed his anger at that meeting over the cost and the impending eminent domain, which could cost residents their homes.
“It is wrong,” Boydston said, “it is wrong to take a historically significant city like San Fernando, and run a train right through it above ground and take out homes.”
The HSR has had about 165 outreach meetings on the project, Yee said, and the public’s feedback is vital to the process, because it has and will continue to help shape the plan.
While HSR officials have identified Palmdale and Burbank as the two ideal locations for stops, how the train would get there is still subject to a great amount of discussion, Yee said.
In Burbank, for example, there are three different approaches being looked at for how the train would arrive at the airport there.
While she notes the timeline could change, state officials are looking at creating an update for the board by mid-June, based on this latest round of outreach. The update is known as a draft supplemental alternative analysis, Yee said, adding the last one was completed May of last year, and changes in the plan can be seen.
Up for discussion right now for Santa Clarita Valley residents are four routes from Burbank to Palmdale, with the aforementioned Highway 14 alignment the least popular for most, due to safety and other concerns. The SR-14 plan would run along Highway 14 through San Fernando, and then above ground through several North Los Angeles County communities.
Santa Clarita Valley officials are pushing for one of four “Eastern alignments,” an option that adds 10 miles to the route, but places much more of the track underground through national forest.
While there will be a formal update in June for the HSR, The goal for rail officials now is to have a Draft Environmental Impact Report ready by next summer, and the final EIR by the summer of 2017.
A Final EIR, or environmental impact report, must be completed and approved before construction can begin.