Would Kings County Oppose Interstate 5?
There are some odd things in this article about opposition to the planned high speed rail route in Kings County:
Widespread opposition remains to the plan to run high-speed rail through prime Kings County farmland. But while local leaders may not be able to stop the train, they are stepping up their efforts to have a voice in the route-planning process.
That opposition isn’t quite “widespread” – in fact, back in December, a Kings County supervisor said that “Growers fighting the approved alignment “have a strong voice,” he says, “but I do not think they represent the majority of the people here.”” Many in Hanford understand the need for jobs in a county with unemployment at 20%.
But that’s not the odd part. This is:
Many in Kings County – and especially those at the Farm Bureau — have not given up hope that rail officials in Sacramento will consider realigning the bullet train route with existing right-of-way corridors, either along Highway 99 or Interstate 5, rather than running the tracks through farmland, which rail officials currently favor because that alignment would allow the trains to pass closer to existing population centers.
“This is a disaster for us and we adamantly oppose the current [east bypass] alignment,” said Kings Farm Bureau Executive Director Diana Peck. “It would destroy prime, productive farmland.”
That’s odd because in the 1960s, Interstate 5 was built on a brand-new alignment through much of the San Joaquin Valley. In some places it supplanted the existing Highway 33 roadway, but in most places it was simply paved through existing farmland. This aerial shot is from the Buttonwillow area in Kern County:
Interstate 5 cuts off a small corner of Kings County, just south of Kettleman City and Avenal. Much of it is built into the foothills just above farmland. But there are some stretches of I-5 that actually did cut right through the middle of farmland where there hadn’t been a transportation corridor before. Similarly, the California Aqueduct, built at about the same time as Interstate 5, cut right through existing farmland.
I don’t know if Kings County put up a fight over either of those projects. I doubt it, because at the time, they likely understood the benefit of a freeway and a canal, even though not every county resident would use them, even though they cut through existing property.
High speed rail will similarly benefit Kings County. A station at Hanford will be a godsend to the small but growing city, immediately making it a desirable destination (I’m not kidding) for businesses and residents who will seek the combination of low land prices and proximity to major economic centers that an HSR station provides. Just as Interstate 5 and the California Aqueduct enabled 20th century prosperity for Kings County, so too will HSR enable 21st century prosperity – especially in an era of soaring gas prices. Without HSR, Hanford and Kings County will be left behind, isolated, and mired in a slow but steady economic decline.
Kings County should not let conservative ideologues – or a few farmers – stop them from becoming a part of 21st century California.
O/T: For those interested, we’ve posted a letter sent by Legislators to the Authority asking that they respond to the Independent Peer Review’s concerns in their draft business plan due Oct 14, 2011.
http://www.calhsr.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Letter-to-van-Ark.pdf
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
March 2nd, 2011 at 10:12 pm
Never can be too early, I suppose.
So because some people in the 60ies didn’t opposse the construction of a highway, that means that today, people in the same area have no business protesting this creation of a new right of way? That doesn’t make any sense. Especially since farmers would probably see much more utility for a highway than for a passenger-only super-regional railway.
I understand that NIMBYs can be annoying, but this attempt to discredit them just discredits yourself more than anything.
synonymouse Reply:
March 2nd, 2011 at 9:32 pm
Wikipedia describes the I-5 route in the San Joaquin as an infrastructure corridor, also comprising the Aqueduct and Path 15 high voltage transmission lines. Be pretty hard for anybody to oppose that kind of clout in the fifties and not be called a commie or worse.
Alex M. Reply:
March 2nd, 2011 at 9:36 pm
The point is that I-5 benefited kings county, and so will HSR. People didn’t oppose I-5 because they knew it would be great for the county. Robert here is trying to convince the people in Kings county that since HSR will have the same great benefits that 5 did, they shouldn’t be opposing it.
Another thing to consider (which Robert didn’t mention) is that the corridor for the two HSR tracks running through this area will be quite narrow especially when compared to 5. It should be about 50 feet wide, as opposed to I-5 which is 200 feet wide, at least in Kings county.
synonymouse Reply:
March 2nd, 2011 at 9:40 pm
a very good reason to lay it right down I-5 – cheap, fast, and it won’t bother anybody.
Alex M. Reply:
March 2nd, 2011 at 9:46 pm
Yeah, and it won’t serve anyone either. The whole point of the HSR running near 99 is so that it can serve people in Fresno, Hanford, and Bakersfield. It wouldn’t make sense to not serve them.
Victor Reply:
March 3rd, 2011 at 12:00 am
Yep, Otherwise Why would anyone have stations in Fresno or Bakersfield? When the I5 was built
Dad filled the cars tank to the brim with Gasoline as there weren’t hardly any Gas Stations on the I5 yet, As some were still being built. And that car barely got 20mpg, I think He topped off the tank near the Grapevine too.
Victor Reply:
March 2nd, 2011 at 10:10 pm
Construction in the 60′s? The only hwy that I’ve ever heard of back then for the area was the I5 It was meant to bypass the central valley cities and the prime farmland that was supposedly near US99, So they built the I5 where It now sits, The route chosen was to serve the Farming communities and Bypass the cities to the east. As to opposition, I’m not sure there was any, I would have read about it in the Newspaper back then, the 1st segment looked like It took 7 years to build and the 2nd segment took about 5 years and I remember My Parents and I drove through there while the I5 was still being built in 1971(My Dad did the Driving, Mom just came along cause He had the Car and the Checkbook[My Moms words], Me? I sat in the backseat unbelted and I watched everything go by as the car drove past or If I was tired I took a nap, But then I was 11 years old back then).
I5: San Joaquin Valley area
Robert, it’s as simple as:
Water and I-5 help the production and shipping of agricultural products. A HSR train is likely only to move people and maybe (if we are lucky) mail. Still, they shouldn’t oppose it that much. It will help them dealing with the upcoming water wars.
joe Reply:
March 2nd, 2011 at 10:21 pm
HSR improves Air Quality.
As population grows, the EPA will have to further regulate pollution sources, such as farm equipment. HSR will reduce cars, reduce pollution and ease restrictions on farming.
It’s non-trivial. Farm practices and equipment like fruit pickers are, relative to a car, dirty and likely to see further regulation if the state can’t control pollution.
wu ming Reply:
March 2nd, 2011 at 10:36 pm
moving people by HSR means more room on 99 for trucks full of produce. and it potentially allows the area to develop a more well-rounded economy not as vulnerable to the weather or ag market fluctuations.
Victor Reply:
March 3rd, 2011 at 9:41 am
Agreed, From what little I saw of the 99 in Bakersfield, It looked pretty crowded there near SR58 and in need of some repairs as I saw and avoided a cracked section of Concrete as that section is a Freeway, The crack looked big enough to stick ones hand into and It looked deep and the piece on the left was tilted down too.
Astroturfing is getting hardcore. How do I get one of these jobs?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2011/feb/23/need-to-protect-internet-from-astroturfing
Who do you think is astroturfing more, the CHSRA, Reason or Morris Brown?
D. P. Lubic Reply:
March 3rd, 2011 at 5:59 pm
I nominate Reason; from his style, Morris is pretty consistent, and from some of the things that have been said around here (including remarks by Morris and Synonymouse) the CHSRA either doesn’t have the manpower or the brains to do this sort of thing.
Isn’t obvious that HSR’s biggest impact for farmers is that it will make Central Valley cities become more dense in their core, and not sprawl out all over the place, eating up valuable farm land in the process. Six of the seven Central Valley stations will be in the cities downtown (Hanford being the only station that won’t be). That will save more farmland than anything the HSR ROW will be taking over the next 30-40 years.
What HSR won’t do is directly benefit the CV farmers bottom line financially, so they say “lets pick a fight and see what we can get”. It’s pathetic.
Paul H. Reply:
March 3rd, 2011 at 2:49 am
*Isn’t it
Elizabeth Reply:
March 3rd, 2011 at 6:29 am
Everyone keeps repeating this idea that HSR will solve sprawl. I don’t think this is at all obvious
The Hanford station is going to be greenfields – right between two cities that from the map, look like they could grow together, swallowing up the farmland in between.
Fresno station could induce more growth to the Central Valley. Even if some is built downtown, much more would be in developments like those happening in Southeast Fresno. Fresno’s downtown is not its main business district (the downtown has mostly government service jobs), and while people expresss continual hope that it will change, the actual developments that are continually approved say otherwise.
“The City of Fresno expects the population to increase in Sunnyside/Southeast Fresno by over 100,000 people. New housing starts have broken ground and 4,000+ houses planned. The new Sunnyside High School campus has been recently opened, ready for of the new population growth. Fwy 180 is now completed to Temperance Avenue with future on/off ramps planned at Fowler Avenue in a few years.”
The Fresno city council in March 2010 gave the go ahead for another big project in that area: http://www.fresnobee.com/2010/03/25/1872557/fresno-council-oks-fancher-creek.html
Victor Reply:
March 3rd, 2011 at 9:56 am
It will solve traffic issues from Los Angeles to San Francisco/Sacramento or at least help slow down anymore freeway expansion into valuable farmland, Which lower costs to maintain those vital links and that should result in vehicles lasting longer, Farmers can appreciate that, Sprawl they do care about as good farm land can’t be made, But It can be paved over, Vehicle maintenance and replacement I’d think are important to them of course and limiting freeway expansion is something that will help Farmers hold on to as many acres as they can, For the soil is their livelihood and vehicles and freeways are the means to help get those goods to market, So that others can eat what they grow. If You want to continue eating, Then HSR will help in that respect, Cause Californias population is still growing and It is predicted to get to 50 million in the near future, As there has been a population shift from the Northeastern US to the Southwestern US according to the US Census.
JJJ Reply:
March 3rd, 2011 at 3:53 pm
Elizabeth, downtown Fresno has more jobs than any other section of Fresno, 40,000 of them. of those, around 1/3 are government. So false on both of your points.
What you need to be doing is opposing the 180 extensions, not high speed rail. It’s the freeway extensions that are encouraging sprawl.
Joey Reply:
March 3rd, 2011 at 4:21 pm
Having a lot of jobs to begin with doesn’t necessarily equate to no sprawl.
James Fujita Reply:
March 3rd, 2011 at 5:00 pm
True. Growth will happen. It is possible that sprawl will happen. The question is, whether we manage that growth, whether we organize it.
Even sprawl would not be so bad if people had ways around it. Alternatives.
Wad Reply:
March 4th, 2011 at 2:37 am
HSR may likely produce sprawl on steroids. Traffic congestion would be localized — HSR wouldn’t make it faster to drive from Fresno to the Bay Area or Southern California — but developers may launch a square-footage arms race. We’d get fast trains, but commuters living in 10,000, 25,000 or perhaps even more square-foot homes!
Also, HSR may enable “urban plantationing.” In other words, city money will buy up farms and allow for hobbyist agribusiness. A couple would own and live on a farm, while one spouse leaves the Central Valley to the coasts for work and the other manages the farm. Plus, California agribusiness will be reorganized where urban farm owners will purchase agriculture management expertise rather than tending to agriculture themselves.
Nathanael Reply:
March 7th, 2011 at 1:27 pm
It hasn’t produced “sprawl on steroids” in other countries. HSR, *like all passenger rail*, produces concentrations of development near the stations, and less so far from the stations.
Hanford doesn’t want the “beetfield” station, because that will produce development in the beetfields? Fine! Let them support the downtown station, then. Oh, what, they don’t want that EITHER? Ahem. I don’t think much of that attitude.
Peter Reply:
March 7th, 2011 at 1:32 pm
I’m ok with them not having any station, to be quite honest. Right now it’s just a placeholder station to meet the language of AB3034.
Elizabeth Reply:
March 4th, 2011 at 7:11 am
I am looking at page 31 of http://www.kimley-horn.com/Projects/fasttrackfresnocounty/downloads/StreetCarInfo/Streetcar%20Report%20October%202010.pdf this report. It shows CBD employment as 12k, with 75% from government. For Fresno downtown, you could throw in civic center area and the others adjacent and it is still very, very light in office and professional. From the commercial real estate reports I have seen, the “prime” office space is north, north east.
James Fujita Reply:
March 3rd, 2011 at 4:24 pm
Oh come on. I wouldn’t call Hanford station a greenfield. Half a greenfield maybe. It’s certainly not halfway between Visalia and Hanford.
Visalia would have to do a lot of growing to meet up with Hanford in the middle. Much more likely is, Hanford will grow a little to the east. The real concern I would have is Hanford growing to the west into Lemoore, and HSR would help prevent that.
The new station is just barely to the east of downtown Hanford, and the town is growing. Build a station there, and the growth will happen, it will just bend toward the station rather than sprawling every which way. It’s like putting up a bean pole, or braces to straighten growing teeth.
Andre Peretti Reply:
March 3rd, 2011 at 4:52 pm
In my country (France) the only thing that can contain sprawl is local legislation. It’s very permissive on the Mediterranean coast and that’s where cities sprawl.
Marseille, with 1/5 the population of Paris, is 2.5 times larger. Population density in Paris is 20000/km2 but only 3300/km2 in Marseille. More and more houses are built beyond the city limits because land there is cheaper.
Marseille has HSR, subway, buses and trams. And yet, it sprawls.
Anthony Reply:
March 4th, 2011 at 11:19 pm
Because its on the Mediterranean Coast or did you just miss that part of why it Sprawls…
Andre Peretti Reply:
March 5th, 2011 at 4:07 am
I said sprawl is facilitated because local legislation is very permissive. There are also rumours of politicians being in cahoots with developpers, though it has never been proved.
When a 25-year loan to buy a house costs you the same as renting an appartment downtown, how can you resist that?
datacruncher Reply:
March 3rd, 2011 at 5:21 pm
The CV will be California’s high growth region (along with the IE) with or without HSR. High speed rail will not eliminate sprawl, but HSR’s impact on an area like Fresno may change land use ideas and planning decisions and minimize or reduce sprawl.
A couple of comments about the Fresno examples.
The Fancher Creek project is a TOD type mixed-use development located at the eastern terminus station for Fresno’s BRT. That is a very different development model for the Central Valley and Fresno which increases both transit and density. Fancher Creek consists mainly of 4 story buildings of ground floor retail with up to 700 housing units above. That is a big change from Fresno’s single story strip mall look.
The southeast growth area plan is currently being reconsidered by Fresno’s city council, it may be pulled.
http://www.fresnobee.com/2011/02/10/2268055/plan-for-southeast-fresno-faces.html
Another project now in planning not mentioned is replacing one story apartments near Fresno’s Fig Garden Village with 6 story apartment buildings, increasing density in that area too.
http://www.fresno.gov/NR/rdonlyres/0C7D46E7-4E31-4674-8D65-FD8FEB7D411D/0/GunnerAndrosExhibitsPart2May8.pdf
The Fresno area has been seeing change, heck this weekend a fringe/alternative performance arts festival starts its run there which based on some of the show titles on the website might seem more like the Bay Area or Seattle than the Central Valley. But its been in Fresno for 10 years now.
http://roguefestival.com/rogue2011/?page_id=738
The point is it takes change in community attitudes to embrace smarter planning and reduce sprawl. HSR could help be a catalyst for more of that change in the CV.
Andre Peretti Reply:
March 3rd, 2011 at 6:57 am
The SNCF had the same sort of problems when it planned a direct line to Nice cutting through farmland and vineyards. The route seemed ideal since it didn’t cross any built-up area, but the farmers and wine-growers killed the project.
They were helped by the media which made it a David/Goliath story: the brave little wine-grower vs the big bad SNCF.
Let’s not panic and let’s not fear the worst.
I’m pretty sure that if I was a farmer and some of my land was going to be acquired that I’d put up a fight, not because I was opposed in principle, but in the hope that I could increase the compensation being offered or win some other concession.
Andre Peretti Reply:
March 3rd, 2011 at 11:41 am
You can’t blame farmers for being wary of architects and contruction engineers who generally know little about agriculture.
Even an elevated track, whose footprint seems negligible, has an impact. The shades of the deck and piles will affect sun exposure for some zones, causing a lack of homogeneity in growth and ripeness. This may create problems for mechanical picking.
If the soil below the deck is not kept at the same degree of humidity as the rest of the land, it will be a barrier for worms. And worm circulation is essential for keeping the soil alive.
Alon Levy Reply:
March 3rd, 2011 at 10:48 pm
The natural move for the authority is to check how it’s done in Japan and Taiwan, and try to do the same in California. The cost of hiring a few people who know what to do is trivial.