The Loop Newspaper - Tehachapi's Online Community News & Entertainment Guide

Advance team, engineers share progress at community meetings

California High Speed Rail (HSR) Authority has jettisoned a proposed track alignment across the Lehigh Southwest Cement 40-year expansion quarry and Oak Creek-area wind farms in favor of a more westerly route through Cal Portland Cement quarry property.

HSR engineers have been meeting with Cal Portland executives to work out the better of two proposed routes through their quarry. Much of the HSR track through the property would be built in underground tunnels, and Cal Portland, in accessing its deep limestone reserves, is an active underground blasting site.

With the help of project engineers and interactive maps, the HSR Authority presented a series of informational open houses, Sept. 30 to Oct. 7, 2015, for communities along the 75-mile Bakersfield to Palmdale segment of the San Francisco to Los Angeles fast rail line. The meetings are an integral part of the ongoing public relations campaign to ease the way for the massive project.

Residents along the proposed rail line will be affected, some more dramatically than others. Construction for the 220-mph electric train track goes over, under or through structures and properties, but not around them, as the track has to be straight, with long, gentle curves. Home owners, farmers and businesses who are uprooted by construction of the rail line are called “displacees.” The Authority provides material explaining in detail “Your Rights and Benefits as a Displacee Under the Uniform Relocation Assistance Program.” (See http://www.hsr.ca.gov).

Attendance at the meetings at Bakersfield (Edison), Tehachapi and Mojave was 50 to 60 people. The meeting in Rosamond, conducted in English and Spanish, was just under 150 – possibly a response to the new proposed alignment that nearly bisects their community. Eighty-six turned out for the meeting in Lancaster.

“We have to balance multiple priorities to find ways to structure the best possible route,” HSR Southern California Regional Director Michelle Boehm said in Tehachapi. The route has to be safe and fast and with stations where more people can utilize them, she said.

“We need to be respectful of the communities,” Boehm said. “We work as partners.”

Construction has begun on the Fresno segment and contracts have been signed for the next segment, which will bring the rail line to Bakersfield.

The rejected HSR Tehachapi summit route, called the 2012 SAA Alternative, descends east from Tehachapi partially through the Hwy. 58 canyon, nips across the corners of the unincorporated communities of Mojave and Rosamond and locks onto the Sierra Highway corridor just north of the Los Angeles County line.

The now-favored summit alignment runs northwest to southeast just north of the new Tehachapi hospital, crosses over Hwy. 58 at Arabian Drive near the Ashe Village, crosses industrial-zoned Goodrick Avenue, bridges Tehachapi Boulevard just west of Steuber, runs south of Benz Visco Park and bridges Tehachapi Willow Springs Road about a half mile south of Highline. This proposed alignment continues through the hills across Cal Portland property and through Rosamond before joining the Sierra Highway corridor just south of Hwy. 138 (Ave. D) in Los Angeles County.

The western portion of the Tehachapi summit route runs through the Loop Ranch and other large landholdings.

When Phase II is built out, the 800-mile, 24-station rail line will extend from Sacramento to San Diego.

A privately funded joint venture between China Railway International U.S.A. Co. Ltd and XpressWest will tie into LA Metro and other systems to provide high speed rail transportation to Las Vegas.