The California High-Speed Rail Authority Board of Directors Thursday approved the Final Environmental Impact Report/ Environmental Impact Statement for the approximately 80-mile Bakersfield to Palmdale project alignment section.
The action paves the way for full California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) clearance of nearly 300 miles of the high-speed rail project’s 500-mile Phase 1 alignment from San Francisco to Los Angeles/Anaheim. The Board’s actions mark the first CEQA certification of an environmental document in the Southern California region.
“Today’s approval represents another major milestone for this project as we move the project into Los Angeles County,” said CEO Brian Kelly. “We appreciate the collaboration with our local and regional partners as we work to build a clean, electrified high-speed rail system that will connect our state for generations to come.”
The Board’s certification of the Bakersfield to Palmdale Final EIR/EIS and approval of the Project Section allows the Authority to begin preconstruction work as funding becomes available. The section provides a north-south high-speed rail connection between the Central Valley and the Antelope Valley in northern Los Angeles County, closing the passenger rail gap that currently exists between the two regions. The section is designed to accommodate a connection with the Brightline West high-speed rail project to Las Vegas.
But wildlife advocates said transportation options like high-speed rail shouldn’t come at the expense of sensitive species of animals and plants.
“The bullet train will slice through an area that’s critical to statewide wildlife connectivity, but the authority is refusing to incorporate adequate wildlife crossings to limit harm to mountain lions and the region’s incredible biodiversity. California’s wildlife deserves better,” said Tiffany Yap, a senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity. “
The Final EIR/EIS can be found on the Authority’s website at: https://hsr.ca.gov/programs/environmental-planning/project-section-environmental-documents-tier-2/bakersfield-to-palmdale-draft-environmental-impact-report-environmental-impact-statement/.
The high-speed rail project is currently under active construction in the Central Valley along 119 miles at 35 different construction sites with an average of 1,100 workers daily. For more on construction progress visit www.buildhsr.com.
Antelope Valley Safe Streets says
LET’S GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Rightside Up says
This looks like a case of TDS gone wild!
The TDS Twins who will remain nameless (William & Tim) cannot seem to say enough bad things about individuals that identify as non-democratic socialist or basically about anyone that has the audacity to disagree with them. Now we’re the bad guys because we don’t want to invest in a money pit.
The Keystone XL pipeline made our country stronger, it reduced fuel prices which held down inflation. Also, Biden didn’t have to beg OPEC to produce more oil.
The high speed rail is quite the opposite, it’s a huge money pit that will take almost forever to pay off.
If Tim joyfully rode the HSR every day, including weekends and holidays, and paid $100 per ticket roundtrip, and that whole $100 was net profit, he would only need to take 181 million trips to beautiful Bakersfield before the whole thing was paid off.
Assuming inflation dropped to zero and stayed there, Tim could singlehandedly pay off the HSR in just under 50,000 years. Of course that is only the 80 mile Bakersfield to Palmdale section.
Now if he is smart, and he most certainly is, he would get 100 of his friends to ride with him every day and reduce the payoff to only 500 years.
In other words the high speed rail is nothing but a huge boondoggle, just like Afghanistan.
William says
Hey, Upside-down and backward.
Here is why you get mocked and ridiculed. It’s not that we disagree with y’all. It’s that y’all write either stupid or untrue things.
You wrote>
“The Keystone XL pipeline made our country stronger, it reduced fuel prices which held down inflation.”
Really? Amazing for something that wasn’t built yet. Lie #1 and stupid.
Really? Gas prices were low last year due to a drop in the demand due to COVID. Lie #2 and stupid.
I gave up and didn’t bother with the rest. If I want lies and bs I can watch Fox “news” where you download misinformation and bull…and then you REPEAT IT.
See. That’s why you folks get the treatment you get and deserve.
Okay. So where did you actually get that information that wasn’t true. Come on. Tell us.
Trumpist#1 says
William regurgitated:
“Really? Gas prices were low last year due to a drop in the demand due to COVID. Lie #2 and stupid.”
I call BS! Gas prices were low throughout Trump’s presidency. You make stuff up to try to sell your unpatriotic paranoid poison.
Uh oh. I’m gonna get it now!
Tim Scott says
Yeah, you are, because you are just flat wrong here.
The demand curve for gasoline under normal conditions is practically inelastic, ie it is very close to a vertical line. That’s why even minor disturbances in supply, like a refinery closure, cause such wild swings in price.
But putting a stupendous segment of the population on ‘work from home,’ another huge segment on ‘no work, just stay home,’ and then telling EVERYONE “even when you aren’t working everyplace is closed so just stay home in your off time too” had a gigantic impact on demand and obliterated the existing demand curve. Production was immediately cut, but no one could accurately guess what sort of cut was appropriate and the result was an immense overshoot in supply…a glut. At one point last year there were intermediaries in the supply chain; ie people who buy and store large quantities on long term delivery contracts to get low prices in anticipation of reselling at profit; who ran out of storage and rather than break their contract and refuse deliveries (long term this would destroy their business) they were actually selling on the spot market at negative price. That is “if you have storage and can take this off my hands I will pay you to take it.”
It is an absolute documented fact that there was an immense glut when the economy tanked under Trump and that’s what happened to gas prices, period. It is hilarious yet sad how Republicans have beaten “low gas prices good” into the heads of their myopic followers, when the truth is that low gas prices invariably result from REDUCED ECONOMIC ACTIVITY which even the GOP rank and file SHOULD recognize as an obviously not good thing.
Trumpist#1 says
“you are just flat wrong here”.
Yeah, but when have you ever known that to stop me? You know I hate it when you bring up facts! It’s very inconvenient.
Tim Scott says
Y’know, when the debate was raging over whether there was even the remotest logical reason to spend all that money to build “the freeway to nowhere” now known as highway 14 there were plenty of people who sounded just like you. What was the point anyway? Sierra Highway was a fine road. There was only one traffic light between Palmdale and San Fernando, and there weren’t enough people using the road for there to be any backups there.
As a teenager I used to drive home from a closing shift, between midnight and one in the morning, and I would run a hundred miles an hour all the way from the interchange to Vista Point and not pass a car…and I might slow down twice because of headlights coming the other way that were most likely the highway patrol since they were the only other people on the road.
Now, you tell me, was building the freeway to nowhere a good idea, or a boondoggle? Do you think the property taxes, sales taxes, gasoline taxes, and all the rest of the revenue generated as the AV grew from 40,000 residents to 400,000 residents paid that off? I do.
By the way, that one traffic light on Sierra Highway…that was the ONLY traffic light in what is now Santa Clarita; so you should probably toss a few pennies into the count from there too I guess.
Like all conservatives, you have no vision, bare your behind to the future, and wonder why what happens is so painful.
BeeCee says
You know how you won…
• simple Mathematics
• 2 responses from each dolt that reinforces your thought.
William says
When I saw it employed 1,100 workers daily, I was reminded of local conservatives who opposed the HSR yet complained about workers losing jobs in the oil pipleline project that Biden shut down.
Republicans. They can’t govern. Look at Lancaster. It’s the model for GOP incompetence and self-dealing.
Tim Scott says
If only we hadn’t had so much fluff and nonsense slowing things down (thanx for nothin’ conservatives) I would be joyfully taking the high speed train to Bakersfield frequently.
BeeCee says
Hahahahahaha
Hahahaha
You will never get to ride it in your lifetime and you know it!
But yeah I’m for it and I would ride it often.
Hahahahahaha
Tim Scott says
Sure. Like I said, thanx for nothin’ conservatives. Fortunately the rest of the world isn’t as backwards as you insist in keeping the US, so if I want to ride a high speed train I can. The way you lops are the entire third world will probably have them before we do. If a country wants to solve a transportation problem all they have to do is hire a Chinese engineering firm (that has experience) and the deal will be financed by a Chinese bank.
Every time a conservative wins an election it’s one more reason to learn Chinese.
BeeCee says
So it’s the Republicans fault these projects are always bogged down by regulations and so much red tape and organized labor wastes.
Uhhh huh, gotcha.
Tim Scott says
lololololol
On any other day the GOP would be crowing about how they “put a stop to the boondoggle.” But as soon as the conversation starts going against them they flip to “What? No, I was for that all along. Wasn’t us that obstructed that.” Absolutely zero on the integrity meter, that’s the current GOP.
Not a fan of yours says
Don’t stop at Bakersfield Tim, keep going north. The further away from the AV the better for us. There are donut shops along the way.
Tim Scott says
Any time you wanna run me out of town personally just let me know hero.