Show Your Support for Central Valley HSR At This Week’s Hearings
Later this week the hearings for the Central Valley EIR will begin. Californians For High Speed Rail is working to organize HSR supporters to turn out to those hearings, to speak up in support of a project that will bring important and long-lasting benefits to the Central Valley.
From the email sent today by CA4HSR’s Executive Director, Daniel Krause:
Do you live in Central Valley or have family or friends from Central Valley? California’s High Speed Rail project needs you now more than ever!
In the coming days and weeks, Californians For High Speed Rail (CA4HSR) is asking HSR supporters from all walks of life – businesses, workers, students, families, environmentalists and more – to come together and show support for HSR at several upcoming public hearings organized by the CA HSR Authority and the Federal Railroad Administration.
Federal and state officials will be there. Members of the media will be there. As the CAHSR Authority takes comments on draft environmental impact reports/environmental impact statements cover Merced to Bakersfield, it is imperative that our diverse voices supporting HSR be heard at these public hearings.
Can we count on you to attend or invite your family and friends in Central Valley to attend? If you can offer volunteer support at these hearings or to our group in general, we look forward to hearing from you too!
Thank you for your continued dedication to bringing high-speed rail to California!
If you are interested in helping out, you can visit the CA4HSR site and contact us there, or you can leave a comment in this post and I’ll make sure that info gets passed on.
The schedule of EIR hearings:
Merced Draft EIR/EIS Public Hearing
When: Wed, September 14, 3pm – 8pm
Where: Merced Community Senior Center
Address: 755 West 15th Street Merced, CA 95340
Madera Draft EIR/EIS Public Hearing
When: Thur, September 15, 3pm – 8pm
Where: Madera City Council Chambers
Address: 205 W 4th St Madera, CA 95340
Fresno Joint Public Hearing – Draft EIR/EIS
When: Tue, September 20, 3pm – 8pm
Where: Fresno Convention Center
Address: 848 M Street Fresno, CA 93721
Hanford Draft EIR/EIS Hearing
When: Wed, September 21, 3pm – 8pm
Where: Hanford Civic Auditorium
Address: 400 N Douty Street, Hanford
Bakersfield Draft EIR/EIS Hearing
When: Thur, September 22, 3pm – 8pm
Where: Beale Memorial Library Auditorium
Address: 701 Truxtun Ave, Bakersfield
Why turn out for these hearings? First, there are important decisions to be made about specific alignments and the public ought to weigh in on them.
But more importantly, given the attention that these hearings will have, HSR supporters need to get out there and make sure their voices are heard. Some of the reasons why HSR in the Valley is so important:
• The project is estimated to generate $3 billion in new economic activity in the short term and could create tens of thousands of jobs. It will connect residents to job opportunities on the coasts, will help make Fresno and Bakersfield into affordable housing locations for workers on the coasts, and will encourage businesses to relocate to the Valley.
• High speed rail will allow Valley residents to have fast, affordable, convenient transportation to the Bay Area and Southern California, whereas they’re currently dependent on driving (flights are hard to come by and expensive).
• High speed rail will help improve the air quality of the Valley, which is currently very unhealthy and causes serious problems for children in particular in the Valley.
Farmers may raise concerns, but Interstate 5 was built on an entirely new alignment in the 1960s, slicing through farms, without undermining the agricultural industry. The number of farms that will be affected is small, but the benefits for both farmers and other residents will be enormous.
If you live in the San Joaquin Valley, I hope you will be able to attend.
Call for Sac inclusion in initial hsr scheme:
http://www.smdailyjournal.com/article_preview.php?id=167193&title=HSR%20to%20Sacramento:%20A%20plus%20for%20health%20and%20more
Paulus Magnus Reply:
September 12th, 2011 at 10:05 pm
Works for me. Would certainly make Altamont look even better.
Jack Reply:
September 12th, 2011 at 10:07 pm
While this would help me directly in the work that I do, it’s not going to happen.
Howard Reply:
September 13th, 2011 at 12:20 am
A backup initial operating segment of Sacramento to Bakersfield should be considered (studied) just in case construction of either (both) mountain passes proves to be too expensive for available funding. A Central Valley only initial operating segment has several other advantages including: strong political support by struggling cities (Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson has already said publicly that he wants Sacramento in Phase 1), trains could run at full 220 mph speed on almost the entire corridor, and there is no competing air service (Sacramento to Fresno or Bakersfield). It serves a corridor with a combined existing population of 5.5 million; therefore, clearly not a train to nowhere. The only problem is there is not currently enough data to evaluate this alternative because the Sacramento to Merced segment EIR was defunded and halted before an analysis was published. It seems to me that the money to finish the Sacramento to Merced EIR should be found so that the Sacramento to Bakersfield initial operating segment alternative can be considered as a backup to the San Jose to Bakersfield and Merced to Los Angeles initial operating segments.
Alon Levy Reply:
September 13th, 2011 at 1:25 am
Sigh. No love for LA-Bako?
synonymouse Reply:
September 13th, 2011 at 11:06 am
Bako to LA via Tejon – what’s not to love? And then right on to Sac from Wheeler Ranch. Save 99 north of Bako for a massive subsidized rebuild of the UP 99 line ala an uber-Alamada Corridor.
Can you picture UPS trains over Tejon behind UP hybrids? Might serve as an entree to interest the class ones in electrification.
synonymouse Reply:
September 13th, 2011 at 11:29 am
And for really over the top imagineering how about a UPS train rolling down the I-5 median?
Peter Reply:
September 13th, 2011 at 11:42 am
I’m getting the feeling that synonymouse is the ultimate railfan. He wants to build not one, but two major passenger rail lines through the Central Valley, and he dreams of freight trains crossing Tejon…
synonymouse Reply:
September 13th, 2011 at 12:18 pm
yup
Peter Reply:
September 13th, 2011 at 5:09 am
That’s one of the most well-argued newspaper articles (editorials? I hate that they don’t make that clear) I’ve read in a while. There were a few misunderstandings apparent in it, including the following:
The author should read this posting by Clem on “roller-coaster physics”.
On the whole, though, I don’t think that the Authority is going to change their priorities from SF-LA anytime soon.
jim Reply:
September 13th, 2011 at 10:13 am
Obviously a change to AB3034 to include Sacramento (with the clear implication that Sac’s prioritized over SF) would be politically impossible.
The Feds, though, have some leverage. Suppose that CHSRA together with Fed help gets enough funds together to build LA-Merced. The Feds could then fund Amtrak to build Merced-Sacramento to the same tech specs and buy enough rolling stock to run LA-Sac services. Such a deal would need to be carefully (if informally) coordinated between the Feds, the Governor, the Chairman and CEO of CHSRA, Caltrans and Amtrak. But it’s conceivable.
Merced-Sacramento is likely to cost something between a quarter and a third of Chowchilla-TBT. So there’s some financial motive from the Fed point of view. And LA-Sacramento at 350 km/h would be an achievement that the White House would boast of. Clearly a railroad to somewhere.
Once trains are running between LA and Sac and passions on the Peninsula have cooled, it might be possible for CHSRA to then partner with a private firm to build Chowchilla-TBT with the private firm incentivized by the franchise to run the (more lucrative) LA-SF route. Both the private firm and Amtrak (and possibly DX, too) would pay CHSRA trackage fees on the LA-Merced portion, the excess of which over operating and maintaining that portion could go towards funding construction first of LA-Anaheim and then LA-SD.
Joey Reply:
September 13th, 2011 at 11:49 am
Reasonable enough, though I’m confused as to why Amtrak has to be involved.
jim Reply:
September 13th, 2011 at 1:51 pm
It has to be somebody that isn’t bound by AB3034 and still has eminent domain authority.
Tony d. Reply:
September 13th, 2011 at 9:40 am
$an Francisco, $an Jo$e, $ilicon Valley..enough said. Stop wasting everyones time with this “Cow Town”, Altamont bullshit!
Paulus Magnus Reply:
September 13th, 2011 at 10:08 am
San Jose, the Silicon Valley, and San Francisco are still connected by Altamont.
Tony d. Reply:
September 13th, 2011 at 12:22 pm
OK, waste everyones time if you must..
adirondacker12800 Reply:
September 13th, 2011 at 12:44 pm
Assuming the branch line to San Jose gets built. If BART or AC Transit to Transbay is good enough for big swaths of the East and Golden Gate Transit is good enough for the North Bay why isn’t BART to Fremont good enough for San Jose?
Joey Reply:
September 13th, 2011 at 1:25 pm
AC Transit doesn’t go to San Jose. That’s VTA’s territory (and nothing VTA has ever provided has ever been sufficient for anything, let alone feeding HSR). Anyway, however unlikely either may be at this point, if we can switch to Altamont we can probably stop BART to SJ.
If we had high speed rail I would actually be able to attend these meetings. ( and why are they scheduling them on weekdays when everyone is at work instead of saturdays.)
Paulus Magnus Reply:
September 13th, 2011 at 8:12 am
Because they set their own schedules, why would they want to work on Saturday?
jimsf Reply:
September 13th, 2011 at 10:52 am
management. typical.
Peter Reply:
September 13th, 2011 at 11:54 am
People living in San Francisco are not exactly the target audience for this. Note that the meetings go until 8 pm, allowing the people who may be directly affected to go to the meetings.
I could get on board with sac-bfd plan. But I’m guessing that segment isn’t far enough along in studies.
OT (sort of): I’m looking at the Pacheco Pass as I type this from western Gilroy. The Diablo Range in this area is more akin to foothills than a true mountain range. But to hear some of you folk describe the “difficult” tunneling and roller coaster effect, you’d think it was the Himalayas or something: its not.
Peter Reply:
September 13th, 2011 at 12:34 pm
The “roller coaster” discussion didn’t pertain to Pacheco, but to a claim, oft-repeated, and debunked by Clem, that the vertical alignment plans for Millbrae are infeasible because the trains would “rapidly” have to make a transition from elevated to tunneled.