High-speed rail representatives are strongly considering a stop near Bob Hope Airport as the sole San Fernando Valley station for the planned 800-mile system, local officials said.

Rail representatives early this year expressed a preference for station options in Burbank along the San Fernando Road corridor, either in the city’s downtown area or near Glendale, on Alameda Avenue. But after hearing public concerns about connectivity to the airport, the authority is instead considering a stop near Bob Hope, at Hollywood Way…

Authority representatives have also reacted to local concerns about station locations with a plan to choose one stop in the San Fernando Valley, rather than two, as was previously discussed, said Jano Baghdanian, Glendale’s traffic and transportation administrator.

Representatives have indicated that they would choose a stop between sites either in San Fernando or Slymar, or in Burbank, rather than placing two stops in the valley, officials said.

This is in response to the city of Burbank’s request that an airport stop be studied. You can see the proposed airport stop, and the two downtown stops that had been under discussion in previous months, on the map below:

View Burbank HSR in a larger map

The questions I asked in March still apply:

1. Is it better to have a station near downtown Burbank or near Burbank Airport? Downtown Burbank has some density, and could have more in the future, but is it a more compelling source of riders than the nearby airport? Is it worth moving the station nearer the airport at the expense of downtown?

2. Is Burbank Airport equipped to handle the ridership that HSR might bring? Burbank is already a popular option for people flying to points in downtown LA and nearby areas, as it’s easier to get there from Burbank than LAX. HSR service would be a huge advantage for Burbank, as LAX can never hope to have service to downtown LA as fast as an HSR link from Burbank. But Burbank isn’t a large airport and may not be able to handle a big increase in passengers. Then again, if HSR succeeds in grabbing most of the market share of the LA-SF corridor, then that would free some space at Burbank.

3. What happens to connections to Metrolink and Amtrak? Since the Burbank station is so close to Union Station, this might not be as big an issue. It would mean that people wanting to get to HSR from points westward on Metrolink (currently as far as Moorpark) and Amtrak (as far as Santa Barbara, maybe even San Luis Obispo) would have to go all the way to Union Station to transfer to a northbound HSR train.

The report in the Burbank Leader doesn’t indicate any answers to those questions. But it does suggest that Burbank officials seem to think, bizarrely, that downtown would be better off without HSR than with it:

The new options could mean that Burbank may not have a stop at all, a change that city officials may not consider a major loss because of the accompanying traffic and infrastructural impacts associated with adding another transportation hub to the area, Kriske said.

“I think its probably still mixed,” Kriske said. “I think there’s probably still some sentiment to question whether we want it at all even with the airport still being an option.”

I’m not sure I buy this. An HSR stop would bring a lot of travelers, commuters, and others to Burbank. It would enable Burbank to diversify its downtown, potentially landing conference facilities or other destinations that could leverage the HSR station. Burbank seems to think that the late 20th century conditions will persist indefinitely, which as we all know isn’t going to happen. Downtown Burbank will eventually regret moving the HSR station to the airport, although the city as a whole might not mind it if the airport station were to become a new hub of its own (and it’s difficult to see how that happens; TOD and airports aren’t exactly a great mix).

But this does raise an intriguing possibility. If the San Fernando Valley loses a station, that opens up a possibility for a new station somewhere else. The most likely possibility might well be Visalia/Hanford, which has been clamoring for a station for some time. It could also enable a two-station solution in central San Diego, with one at their airport (Lindbergh Field) and another downtown.

On the other hand, the San Fernando Valley, with a population of 1.76 million, would seem capable of supporting two stations. Without a Sylmar station, residents in the Santa Clarita area would be left without a convenient HSR station. Presumably a station could be added there later, although AB 3034 would have to be modified.

Without having taken a closer look at this proposal, it would seem to me that there needs to be a regional approach to the station location decision. It can’t just be driven by Burbank. The cities of Los Angeles, Glendale, Santa Clarita, and even little San Fernando, need to come together to discuss the region’s needs and consider the HSR station location in context of regional planning priorities.

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.