High-speed rail's latest destructive fantasy

Bakersfield to Palmdale

Ralph Vartabedian in the LA Times:

The future California bullet train would barrel out of Bakersfield and shoot up 4,000 feet over the Tehachapi Mountains en route to Palmdale, an engineering feat that would cost $18.1 billion and impose significant impacts — including the loss of low-cost housing, a homeless shelter and a high school, according to new details.

The impacts are outlined in a draft environmental statement released Thursday by the California High-Speed Rail Authority. It selects a preferred route that would include 9.3 miles of tunnels and 15.8 miles of elevated structures, representing about 30% of the entire passage between the two cities.

The rail segment is a crucial link in California’s ultimate plan of running bullet trains from the Bay Area to Los Angeles and beyond. But this stretch of the route, as planned, would take out the R. Rex Parris High School in Palmdale, the Lancaster Community Homeless Shelter, the Solid Rock Bible Church, eight motels, 253 residential housing units, 311 businesses and 175 farm fields, according to the environmental documents...

The environmental documents also indicate that a section of the iconic Pacific Crest Trail, which runs from the Mexican to Canadian borders through mountain ranges, forests and deserts, would have to be relocated. The resulting trail would run within sight and sound of the passing 220-mile-per-hour trains. The impacts “would be significant and unavoidable under CEQA,” the report states, referring to the California Environmental Quality Act.

The housing losses would include 34 single family homes, 164 apartments and 55 mobile homes, the authority said.

When and if these impacts would occur is only a guess, since the state lacks the $18 billion to build the section. The rail authority is working under a plan to build 171 miles of rail from Bakersfield to Merced for $20.4 billion, a cost that would consume all of its available funding if it can be completed on schedule by about 2028. But under its 2020 business plan, the rail authority still asserts it can complete the entire Los Angeles to San Francisco system by 2033...

The cost of building over the steep mountain range has grown much more rapidly than the entire project. In 2012, the Los Angeles to San Francisco construction was estimated to cost $68 billion, and it has since grown 18% to $80 billion under the 2020 business plan. By contrast, the cost of the Bakersfield to Palmdale section shot up from $7.7 billion in 2012 to the current $18.1 billion, an increase of 135%...

The modern route would include some massive structures, such as one viaduct extending 4,600 feet, nearly a mile, and another soaring 220 feet, roughly the height of a 20-story building, above the ground, according to the rail authority.

The last attempted rail path through the area was in the 1870s, when Southern Pacific carved out a winding route with thousands of Chinese immigrant laborers, equipped only with dynamite and hand tools. It is still the only rail route between the Central Valley and Southern California.

Since 2015, the rail authority and its consultants have been refining the Tehachapi Mountain crossing and the preferred route identified Thursday has fewer miles of tunnels. Five years ago, studies indicated that it would require 16 miles of tunnels, rather than the current 9.3 miles.

In addition to the tunnels, the route would include 75 overpass or underpass structures as it crosses highways. Another 49 roads in the way would just be closed.

See also New bullet train plan paints optimistic picture, but opposition continues to grow.