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This train if routed to Palmdale would cause havoc in Soledad canyon and condemn and destroy dozens of home in Acton on In the Indian Trail area. It is useless as it goes to Downtown LA - not LAX - where it could be of use. Downtown LA is a dying collection of government agencies and a ghost town at night, It is no longer the center of anything but government.
Also to build this train it will require a vote of all of California to raise the Sales tax from 0.25 to 1 percent forever.
We need good fast high speed transport to where people need to travel.- the Desert to LAX and jobs if the LA Area. This is not IT.
This story appeared in the Antelope Valley Press November 18, 1999
By DON JERGLER Valley Press Business Editor
LOS ANGELES - Getting the state's planned high-speed train to stop in Palmdale has been a metaphoric tennis match - one serve putting the high desert's second largest city on the bullet train map, the next lob knocking Palmdale squarely out of bounds.
During the heat of another battle between an impressive proPalmdale lobby and the staff of the California High-Speed Rail Authority in Los Angeles on Wednesday, the high desert won a home court advantage of sorts. Members of the nine-member authority agreed to sit down with Palmdale officials and discuss the advantages of having a high-speed train stop in Palmdale rather than the authority's currently preferred route - paralleling Interstate 5 and passing over the Grapevine.
That decision came in the midst of a meeting that could have easily sealed Palmdale's fate, leaving the high desert and its inhabitants entirely out of the 680-mile bullet train system.
During its monthly meeting, the authority was expected to once again take a vote that would either put Palmdale back as a priority route in a high-speed rail business plan, or reaffirm its secondary status.
In September, the authority reversed a decision made a month earlier at a meeting in San Francisco that made Palmdale the preferred route from Bakersfield to Los Angeles. Before the San Francisco meeting, Palmdale's status on the bullet train map had been reverted at least twice.
Wednesday's meeting in L.A. was also to hear a plan by the Southern California Association of Governments to serve the Southern California region by magnetic levitation (Maglev) high-speed rail technology. SCAG was given a federal grant to conduct feasibility studies on serving the region with a Maglev train - an unproven technology that drew favor from the federal government as a research and development project.
It was unknown whether SCAG's proposal, which includes a stop in Palmdale, would affect the authority's decision on alignments. After briefly hearing the SCAG proposal, authority members voted for a business plan that recommends the state legislature examine the high-speed rail proposal in increments instead of approving all parts of the plan at once, as had been the authority's stated intention.
The vote was also to keep the Grapevine alignment as the preferred route to Los Angeles, but to equally examine more thoroughly both that route and one through Palmdale at a later date. As a reason for its decision to divide up the approval process, the authority issued a draft of the business plan which states the plan has shortcomings and uncertainties, which require further investigation.
The business plan must be approved by the state Legislature and the governor. Eventually, voters would have to approve a quarter-cent sales tax hike to pay for the public-private funded project, estimated to cost between $25 billion and $30 billion.
In addition to failing to provide service to Orange County or Oakland, the report states, the plan "does not serve Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), the state's largest airport, or Palmdale, a potential regional airport, and it may adversely impact agricultural land in the Central Valley area."
To develop a more accurate cost figure, the plan states, "the authority recommends several additional corridors be investigated in the next phase of work ..."
Outgoing Palmdale City Councilman David Myers, who represents the Valley on high-speed rail issues, said the authority's willingness to sit down with Palmdale officials is a major advantage for regaining high-speed ground. Myers said the authority agreed to a two-hour workshop to be scheduled in Palmdale within the next 90 to 120 days.
Through the workshop, Myers said, Palmdale officials hope to convince authority members there's broad public support for a Palmdale alignment, and they hope to find out why the authority's staff has insisted on favoring the Grapevine route.
Palmdale officials have amassed an impressive list of supporters for a high-desert alignment including the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, the L.A. City Council and Mayor Richard Riordan, SCAG, Los Angeles World Airports and the city of El Segundo.
So far, the authority has based its decisions on a study conducted in 1994, used by the California High-Speed Rail Commission - the authority's predecessor - that shows it's more costly to put a high-speed stop in Palmdale due to the extra 30 miles of track required to complete that portion of the route.
It's been the argument of Myers and Palmdale officials, who commissioned a report two years ago that debunked the findings of the earlier report, that having the high-speed train go through the Grapevine would require more tunneling with greater cost in the end to repair environmental damage. If a high-speed train were to pass through the Grapevine, it would also have to overcome a steep grade, which would require that a 400-foot ramp, known as a viaduct, be built.
Additionally, bypassing the high desert, according to Palmdale advocates, would greatly reduce potential ridership in the next 20 years, when the train, if approved, would likely be up and running.
By the year 2020, SCAG estimates predict the population in the Valley will have doubled to at least 1.2 million. SCAG estimates also show the majority of the population growth in the region occurring in the high desert. "It's our belief that when they do all these studies that we're going to come out superior," Myers said. "When they really study this I think they're going to turn around and show that (going through) the Antelope Valley is going to be a lot cheaper."
John Barna, an authority staff member, said the authority's vote to incrementally approach having the business plan approved puts all possible routes on an even keel. "Based on today's actions, there is no primary route," Barna said.