Burbank is slated to get an HSR station and it will be built near downtown Burbank, which is located immediately to the east of Interstate 5. A good overview can be found in this blog post on the Examiner.com website, which is useful even though it has some obvious anti-HSR biases. The most important part is about the station location, which will include a relocated Burbank Metrolink station:

The Burbank Metrolink station is one of the busiest in the county, making the city a logical choice for Rail Authority planners. Other stops in the region would include Union Station downtown, and yet-to-be-constructed stations in Sylmar and Palmdale.

High-speed rail stations require 1400-foot platforms with straight tracks. This eliminates the site of the current Burbank Metrolink station as a possibility, due to a curve in the tracks there. The area must also be wide enough to accommodate six parallel tracks: two for Metrolink and other carriers, two for high-speed rail travel, and two for high-speed rail passenger platforms. CHSRA has identified two possible locations for such a station in Burbank:

1. Near Alameda Avenue, west of San Fernando Boulevard. This would be an elevated-track platform that would run above Alameda. The area surrounding the tracks is occupied by warehouses and small production companies, which would all be displaced if the state chooses this location.

2. A vacant lot just west of the 5 Freeway, between Magnolia Boulevard and Burbank Boulevard. A station here would sit below street level, but impacts plans to widen the freeway with carpool lanes through the area.

Regardless of which option is chosen, the Burbank Metrolink station will likely be relocated to the site of the high-speed rail station. Planners must also squeeze 2,000 parking spaces onto the site to accommodate the projected 5,000 riders per day that the Burbank station will service.

The city of Burbank staff report is neutral so far on the two options, though it seems they would prefer for the former location instead of the latter if pushed to decide right now. They also report that the CHSRA might be investigating a station further south than Alameda, further away from the downtown core. Here’s what staff had to say about that:

However, in discussions with the Authority’s consultant staff, City staff have learned that the Authority is pursuing an Alameda station location that is slightly different from the alternative discussed above. The Authority’s Alameda station would not be located near the Menasco property (north of Alameda) but would instead be located south of Alameda near the Glendale border near the existing Carmax and Home Depot developments. Staff believes that this southern location to the Alameda station would be a poor choice as it would exhibit all of the negative benefits of the southern station (traffic congestion, low-adjoining densities, distance from Downtown Burbank) with none of the positive benefits (catalyst for redevelopment of South San Fernando, potential surface connectivity to Downtown). Staff recommends that the City provide comments to the Authority that a southern station located south of Alameda Avenue would be unacceptable to the City.

I would agree with this assessment.

Some of the concerns raised by residents in Burbank are similar to those raised on the Peninsula, suggesting that the phenomenon of NIMBYism can be found across the state:

Some officials and community stakeholders took issue with the $3.2-billion price tag for the local section of the corridor, asking why the authority wouldn’t slow trains down to share tracks with Metrolink and freight operators, instead of building dedicated high-speed tracks.

“I still don’t quite understand why they are doing this in this area,” said Glendale City Councilwoman Laura Friedman, who suggested cutting off high-speed operations while trains move through urban centers. “Why don’t they start it in Palmdale?”

Of course, HSR can be built very effectively through Burbank and Glendale, following an existing rail corridor, and reaching speeds necessary to help make the trains successful and wean our state off of costly dependence on oil. Just as some Palo Alto NIMBYs want to end the trains in San Jose, apparently Laura Friedman wants to end the trains in Palmdale, which is actually more absurd (and just as illegal) than ending in San Jose.

The excellent article from the Burbank Leader explains there are some possible land use conflicts – the HSR corridor might encroach on a planned TOD project in Glendale, and other officials are worried about closing off streets, or the visual impact of aerial structures. Glendale is also worried about what will happen to its Metrolink station, built in 1923:

When Glendale City Council members raised concerns about the potential demolition of the commuter station, built in a Spanish colonial revival style in 1923, authority representatives responded with a possible compromise.

“You won’t lose that,” said Steven Ortmann, station planning manager for the authority. “Just move it.”

Coming up with a plan to adjust or relocate a historic station to accommodate the tracks will be a challenge, said Jano Baghdanian, Glendale’s traffic and transportation administrator.

“It’s not as simple as moving a street 10 or 15 feet,” he said.

Those are all legitimate issues to work out. The problem is that too often there is a “why does this have to happen?” mentality on the part of locals and city officials, who seem to think that the jobs aren’t needed, that we have no real need to think about a post-oil method of intercity travel that is sustainable and safe. Instead of treating this as an opportunity to improve their cities and plan around a 21st century form of travel, way too many people seem to think the solution is to paint the proposed solution as an enemy, a villain, something victimizing locals unfairly even though it was approved by a majority of state voters and is widely seen as a necessary part of our state’s future.

Some of the concerns from local residents are flatly absurd:

A below-grade corridor in Burbank would take the form of trenches. This design has residents worried about safety — preventing children, animals and others from falling in, accidentally or otherwise — and unsightly walls that may become targets of vandalism and graffiti.

The graffiti issue is legitimate, but the notion that people will just be able to walk up to a trench and fall in is ridiculous – there will be fencing and other safety measures taken to prevent that.

Ultimately one shouldn’t make too much of these issues in Burbank and Glendale – it’s a delicate, complex, sometimes difficult element of the very necessary work being done to get HSR planned and built. It would certainly help if there was more of a constructive attitude from everyone on the Burbank and Glendale councils, but that seems to be part of the problem with the CHSRA being an independent agency. If it were SCAG, for example, then members of the councils would have been part of the decision-making and planning all along, and would have had greater buy-in. CHSRA’s funding problems, no fault of their own, and their organizational structure meant it was more difficult to create that sort of ongoing buy-in over time. But it is starting to happen now, and I hope Burbank and Glendale, as with other cities like Palo Alto, will earnestly work to make HSR a success, instead of trying to stall and undermine the project.

More info can be found at the CARRD website.

The CHSRA board was shown yesterday an updated presentation and route maps. The presentation acknowledged the considerable opposition to a Rose Canyon alignment, and included the following options for dealing with it:

Some of these proposed alignments, including SR-56, SR-163, and I-8, were suggested by Californians For High Speed Rail in our scoping letter submitted in November. These options seem sensible to study given the need to bring the trains downtown – remember that the trains should go where the riders are – but apparently some of the critics of the Rose Canyon alignment are also criticizing some of the alternatives:

After zipping south along Interstate 15, San Diego County’s planned high-speed rail line could zag west along Highway 56, state rail authorities said this week.

That’s something few people on the east-west corridor know about, San Diego City Councilwoman Sherri Lightner said Thursday. The councilwoman said she didn’t realize it either, until recently.

Highway 56 connects Rancho Penasquitos, Del Mar Mesa, Carmel Valley and other communities to Interstate 5, along sloping terrain dotted with oak trees and upscale subdivisions.

“The thousands of people who live on this corridor need to know if their backyard is going to be considered for a train,” Lightner said Thursday, speaking in front of the California High Speed Rail Authority’s board of directors in downtown San Diego. Lightner’s District 1 includes the 56 corridor….

Lightner said she prefers the I-15 route to Qualcomm, saying it’s the straightest, cheapest option.

Well, now they know. The Authority will indeed be holding public meetings in that community to propose a 56 corridor route, as they will with a 163 route, as they will with an I-8 route.

Unfortunately, Lightner falls into the “straight is best” trap. HSR has to go where the people are. It’s actually more expensive to build it on a straight line, because you’ll get fewer riders and therefore will require more public funding to build. This Tolmach argument that bypassing huge pockets of riders would somehow help HSR is madness, and strikes me as being designed to set HSR up to fail.

Not all San Diego officials were making critical comments. Mayor Jerry Sanders expressed his support for the project:

“We stand firmly behind high-speed rail and will do all that we can to bring it to San Diego,” he said. “It will fuel our economy, help the environment and improve our quality of life.”

Of course, for that to happen, the issue of how HSR gets downtown has to be resolved. The above image indicates the primary options. All of them need to be considered openly and fairly – Lightner’s outright NIMBYism shouldn’t be the determining factor. What are the impacts on costs? On ridership? On travel times?

In assessing this, CHSRA and the community should keep an open mind. They should also not place undue weight on a Qualcomm Stadium station, which strikes me as being pretty much unnecessary. I’ve not been convinced that a University City stop is all that necessary either. What IS necessary is bringing HSR trains downtown, where there is a lot of urban density and destinations that passengers would want to go.

CA4HSR – Los Angeles to San Diego Scoping Comments

Note that the first part of the comment letter are planning guidelines that emphasize station locations should be considered with respect to walkability of surrounding area, opportunities for transit-oriented development (TOD), and easy connectivity to existing and planned mass transit. These principles guided the comments on stations and alignments.

Inland Empire

• All corridors from LA to Riverside County should be studied, except Metrolink corridor from LAUS to Ontario Airport. City of Industry station should be considered for elimination – not a good site for TOD nor is it easily walkable for residents. Locate Ontario Airport HSR station adjacent to air terminal.
• Continue to study stations in downtown San Bernardino (Santa Fe Depot) and downtown Riverside, due to surrounding population, TOD opportunities, transit connectivity.
• Do not further study I-15 alignment/Corona Station due to lack of large urban centers, higher population along I-215 alignment. Do not further study March AFB station due to lack of walkable, dense, TOD opportunities.

San Diego

• Study both Escondido options (city center and I-15). For I-15 alignment, however, move transit center and Sprinter station to I-15 adjacent location and promote TOD around it.
• Do not further study or include station in University City along existing Rose Canyon rails. Consider University Towne Center station, and consider a bored tunnel under it to bypass Rose Canyon. However, also consider eliminating this station due to 24 station limit.
• Consider new alignments to bring HSR from I-15 to I-5 corridor, including SR-56, SR-163 to SR-52, and SR-163 to I-8.
• Qualcomm Stadium should only be studied if it is part of an alignment to downtown San Diego (Santa Fe Depot), significant TOD at Qualcomm Stadium, and elimination of possibility of sending trains to Tijuana via I-805. This would basically be another route to downtown, and downtown SD is the key in these comments.
• Opposes ending HSR at airport terminal. Instead proposes “dual stations” – one at airport and one downtown (Santa Fe Depot); or just downtown SD without an airport stop.

• I had the chance to interview Janice Hahn, LA City Council member and candidate for Lieutenant Governor in 2010. We’ll have the video up on a Calitics soon. One thing I asked her about was high speed rail – she’s shown strong support for HSR recently, and I asked her if she’d be willing to be a statewide advocate for HSR should she be elected, since we seem to lack such an advocate right now. “Absolutely,” she said, and proceeded to make a strong case for why California needs HSR.
• Daniel Krause and I took a quick scoping tour of the proposed HSR route in San Diego, from the Santa Fe Depot north to Rose Canyon and University Towne Center. It seemed clear to us that a downtown station would be the best location for an SD station. Downtown San Diego has become a major regional destination, has a lot of density, and is well-served by the existing mass transit (San Diego Trolley). An airport station, which has a lot of local momentum, would be much less effective from the perspective of potential riders and certainly from the perspective of linking HSR to urban densification (which downtown SD has accomplished quite well). We also took a look at Rose Canyon, where CHSRA proposes an at-grade implementation. BNSF still uses this route for freight service, so track-sharing is an issue. Adding new tracks would mean encroachment on Rose Creek, which is what worries locals. Finally, we drove up to University Towne Center mall, which is an awful TOD location and doesn’t seem like a good place for an HSR station. A possible alternative to Rose Canyon is possible though via a tunnel under UTC, along Nobel, and then south along I-5.
• Scoping comments for the LA-SD route are due Friday, November 20th. From Dan Krause:
  

  It appears that most folks making comments support a downtown San Diego station. Unfortunately, the political momentum in the San Diego area is to eliminate the downtown station in favor of an airport station. While I think there is merit considering a scenario where there would be both a downtown and airport station, it is absolutely necessary for the downtown station to happen for a successful project segment.

  Comments are due for the scoping for the LA-SD section of the project-level eir-eis on Friday November 20th. Please consider sending a note to the following address and let them know a downtown San Diego needs to be preserved.

  Mr. Dan Leavitt, Deputy Director
  California High Speed Rail Authority
  Attn: Los Angeles to San Diego via the Inland Empire Section EIR/EIS
  925 L Street, Suite 1425
  Sacramento, CA 95814
  comments@hsr.ca.gov

Feel free to use this as an open thread for anything HSR-related, whether it involves San Diego or not.

On Friday, the business section of the Arizona Daily Star published an article on a high-speed solar train, proposed as Tucson-Phoenix connection by Solar Bullet LLC, a two-man outfit in Tucson that doesn’t appear to have a website with this single-page web site (h/t to Adirondacker). Neither the proposed route nor any description of the ROW issues/environmental impacts to be addressed are provided. The picture shows a three-car train, which implies frequent but expensive service. The catenaries lack support structures, but at least this image shows the tracks at grade. The author appears more focused on using photovoltaics to power the train that it is on the train itself.

Judging by the comments, this idea has been floated before but somehow never died. This is remarkable/suspicious given that the estimated price tag for the first segment of approx. 115 miles is a whopping $27 billion!

The solar panels above the tracks would not come cheap, especially given their proximity to the overhead wires and exposure to aerodynamic forces plus vibration every time a train runs past. However, the artist’s rendering also shows an aerial structure with a wide gravel bed at grade. It’s possible the artists was clueless, cp. the short length of the train, but a picture does say more than 1000 words. There are few major roads between the metro areas, so why not use the gravel as ballast and switch to aerial alignments only within the relatively populated regions.

Proponents are touting quad tracks so express trains can operate at 220mph, which requires 25kV AC. Note that the artist’s rendering is plain mendacious in that it shows just a single track. No speed was given for the local trains, but with just six intermediate stations 150mph peak should be entirely feasible. Apparently, no-one considered if overall train frequency would justify even sidings at the intermediate stations, never mind dedicated super-express tracks.

Back in 2000, the Tucson metro area has 843,746, while Phoenix counted 3,251,786. The metro area added around one million residents before the real estate bubble burst and is now in modest decline.

The problem for any HSR project is that both cities have little or no connecting public transit. The sprawling metropolis of Phoenix has a grand total of one light rail line and has to resort to an artificial Copper Square umbrella brand for a $3 billion development effort aimed at creating a mixed use neighborhood that is intended to give the city a recognizable downtown area.

Downtown Tucson is also a branding effort rather than the result of decades of planning designed to create a shaded, walkable urban core. Tellingly, the site provides not a map of downtown but of its parking amenities, including numerous multi-story car parks where commercial or residential real estate could have been if public transport had been a priority. It was only in 2006 that residents decided to tax themselves to get streetcar service. Senator McCain’s principled stance against earmarks may be laudable, but in times like these, it could also prove a liability: his fourth term is up in 2010.

HSR between Tucson and Phoenix could perhaps make sense, but perhaps only as a dual-track rapid rail proposition with tracks mostly at grade and in combination with projects to expand local light rail and/or BRT routes, all at a far lower capital investment than is being touted. I’m not sure if it’s the dry desert heat, but there are actually other projects that are partially disconnected from reality. For example, DesertXPress will apparently use a near-invisible overhead wire that needs neither catenaries nor poles. The roof panels above an air-conditioned 21-mile bike path in Qatar are held up by a tangle of pipes carrying expensively refrigerated cold water, presumably to keep cyclists from suffering heat stroke. Note that the artist for this project also forgot support columns.

While I’m all for greener forms of transportation, especially electric trains and (electric) bikes, the Arizona Solar Bullet project in particular does the cause of getting HSR off the ground in the US no favors at all. In spite of criticism of the way certain CHSRA board members and staff have led the California HSR project in recent weeks and months, it is undeniable that the 10+ years spent on environmental and technical studies was not wasted. Not only do none of its renderings defy the laws of physics, the per-mile construction cost forecasts in e.g. the Central Valley are also an order of magnitude lower than the $237 million advanced by Solar Bullet LLC for the Arizona corridor. Indeed, the average for the entire 450 mile starter line from SF to LA and Anaheim, including several expensive mountain and fault crossings plus busy rail traffic at either end, is currently estimated at $73.3 million per mile.

There are good reasons why Secr. of Transportation Ray LaHood thinks California is far ahead of every other HSR project in the country, perhaps even including the still-stalled effort in Florida. Plus, CHSRA has decided it wants the high-speed network in California to run exclusively on renewable power, i.e. a reliable combination of wind, solar and geothermal, possibly assisted by hydro and biogas. However, the Authority has wisely left the implementation details to the experts in the utility sector.