Folks,
This was clipped from the No Cty Times on Sunday……..
Dennis A. Sanford
714-299-9865 Cell
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While engineers and planners have been laying out the possible routes the train might travel and answering questions from residents, these sessions — and one more on June 30 — could be the last appreciable work for at least a year on this section of the railway.
The budget before the Legislature has eliminated all funding for the Los Angeles-to-San Diego section for next year.
An analysis of the governor’s budget received by the San Diego County Association of Governments from staff on Friday says: “Without funding, there is a possibility that all preliminary engineering and environmental work and public outreach activities under way on the San Diego to Los Angeles section would cease on July 1.”
So, after the last of Southern California workshops, the High Speed Rail Authority could find itself with volumes of community input and nowhere to go with it.
“Our thought is to keep moving forward, with or without the funding,” said the agency’s deputy executive director for communications, policy and public outreach Jeffrey Baker, “and be ready, once the funding is available again.”
The fate of the project has almost always been in doubt even as it has moved forward amid criticism over cost, management, choice of routes and, simply, whether it’s a good idea.
Work will continue unabated on the $40 billion primary segment of the high-speed rail, between San Francisco and Los Angeles, said Baker.
The current workshops — on the 170-mile corridor from Los Angeles to Ontario, Murrieta and San Diego — are still timely, according to Baker, simply because there has been a lack of detailed information on the preferred Southern California route.
“Being in such an early stage means having a lot of unanswered questions,” said Baker. “A lot of people believe they are personally affected. People want to know how loud the trains will be, whether a sound barrier will be needed.”
At this point, only 5 to 10 percent of the engineering work is done, said Baker. “There are lots of details not yet known.” Engineers and planners will be at each workshop with detailed maps of the proposed corridor and answers to many questions raised by the public.
To come up with a route between Los Angeles and San Diego, the rail authority reviewed 800 miles of possible paths. There are still sections with more than one possible route that must be winnowed down in the future.
That includes San Diego County where the rail authority is looking at two possible routes, both ending on the north side of the San Diego International Airport.
From Los Angeles, the tracks would head east to Riverside County, to either Ontario Airport or farther east to San Bernardino. The line drops south to a station in Murrieta. From the San Diego County line south, the tracks would run alongside Interstate 15, past a transit station in Escondido, to Mira Mesa.
From there, two possible routes emerge, both ending at the airport:
1. The tracks veer west above Miramar Marine Corps Air Station, tunneling under University City to the intersection of State Highway 52 and Interstate 5, where the tracks would then parallel the existing rail used by Amtrak and the Coaster.
2. The tracks would continue down Interstate 15 to State Route 163, turning west in Mission Valley beside Interstate 8 before connecting to the rail corridor near Old Town.
Depending on funding, the rail authority could pick its preferred route through San Diego County anywhere from a year to four years from now.
As it stands, the route between San Francisco and Los Angeles is expected to be up in running by 2016. Los Angeles to San Diego could open by 2019.
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