About 1,500 Santa Clarita Valley residents booed, clapped and cheered as Santa Clarita hosted a meeting Monday night at Canyon High ostensibly to decry the high speed rail plan.
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Representatives from Santa Clarita, San Fernando, Acton and Agua Dulce — the areas where officials feel their cities could be most adversely affected by the proposed routes — banded together to express opposition to any of the “western alignments.”
“In each of the major corridors, there are currently several alignments under study,” said Mike Murphy, intergovernmental relations manager for the city of Santa Clarita. “The (decisions) that are made this summer are going to be guiding the project for the rest of its existence.”
The goal for rail officials now is to have a Draft Environmental Impact Report ready by next summer, and the final EIR by the summer of 2017.
“We are taking into account what community members are saying,” said Adeline Yee, High Speed Rail Authority spokeswoman. “All of that is taken into consideration.”
There has been positive feedback, also, she said, mostly from the Millenial generation.
“The California High-Speed Rail Authority understands the concerns that the people of Santa Clarita Valley and other communities have about the high-speed rail program,” Yee said, in response to Monday’s meeting. “We are engaged in a back and forth process that will produce a system with the greatest benefits and the fewest impacts. The Authority will hold more public meetings in the coming months as we move forward to develop a range of alternatives.”
There will be community-wide open houses in May, she added.
The various routes affect all of the cities differently, but the discussion Monday focused on the North Los Angeles County portion of the state’s proposed $68 billion, San Francisco-to-Los Angeles routes.
There are four routes being looked at — the least favorable for the officials at Monday’s meeting was a route that heads through San Fernando, and then heads north along Highway 14, coming within throwing distance of Sulphur Springs Elementary in Canyon Country.
San Fernando Mayor Joel Fajardo said the western route, also known as the SR-14 corridor, splits his city’s historic downtown in half.
The train would jeopardize about 7 percent of his city’s budget, he said, which, to put in local terms, would be the equivalent of the revenue generated from two Westfield Valencia Town Centers in a year, he said.
City Councilman TimBen Boydston was angered over the cost and the impending eminent domain, which could cost residents their homes.
“It is wrong,” Boydston said, “it is wrong to take a historically significant city like San Fernando, and run a train right through it above ground and take out homes.” He also implied that believing the state’s $68 billion price tag this early probably requires a lot of medical marijuana.
For Acton officials, opposition to the high speed rail plan seemed to extend to any route, but the eastern routes are the least damaging.
The noise from the train, which could come above ground near schools and even cut through an Acton church that would have to be displaced, was also a concern among numerous residents.
“We want to push this train, away from our homes, away our schools, away from our businesses,” said Chris Croisdale, president of the Acton Town Council, “and away from our livelihoods.”
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They don’t even touch on the fact of what this will do to our water supply for people like us who have wells – one route is less than 1/4 mile from my home. The noise impact as well as possibly ruining our water is unfair. When the water/well situation was brought up to them last year at an Acton meeting we were told to just re-drill for a new well! Seriously! This has got to be stopped – we will not be able to sell our home or get what it’s even worth – this is where we were going to retire.
No one mentioned the two 16 foot tunnels for the north and south loops. That’s a lot of aggregate that has to be dug out and trucked out. We have been fighting CEMEX for exactly that reason.
“There has been positive feedback, also, she said, mostly from the Millenial generation.”
You mean the generation who is too young to have any idea of the long-term ramifications of this and only sees what is right in front of them, and if it FEELS good or not?
Yeah…THAT’S who you want to listen to when making monumental decisions costing tens of billions of dollars that will effect the quality of life for tens of millions of people for decades to come…
you are so stupid for not realising the importance of the HSR, or you’ve just never taken 405, or you have never driven or flew to SF.
Explian to me how a high speed rail from LA to SF is going to help LA traffic on the 405 this isnt going to be making a bunch of stops like metrolunk does and who commutes to SF to work