High Speed Rail To Cross Taylor Yard
By Paul Aranda Jr, EGP News Service
With momentum growing behind a proposed high-speed rail line in California, northeast Los Angeles residents have begun to organize to ensure the community is represented throughout the project that will dramatically impact the surrounding areas. Last week, committee members of the Greater Cypress Park Neighborhood Council (GCPNC) hosted a community forum to provide the latest available information on an 800-mile statewide system that would transport passengers from Los Angeles to San Francisco in two hours and forty minutes.
The GCPNC Land Use Committee, gathered at the Los Angeles River Center on Jan. 7 with representatives of the California High-Speed Rail Authority (Authority) to provide updates as well as to gain ideas on what, if any, impact community feedback will have on the projects final design.
The Authority has proposed two possible alignments for the segment that will run through the existing Taylor Yard rail corridor in Cypress Park. This segment will connect the high-speed rail line from a station in Pomona to Union Station downtown and onto Burbank. Authority representatives said until the project moves further along in the Environmental Impact Review process, there are few, if any, details available. At this point, all the representatives can do is meet with community groups to discuss any potential alternatives to current design plans and to educate residents on a high-speed rail line system.
Steve Ortman, an Authority representative for URF Corporation, provided limited updates by saying the Authority is revisiting alternatives for the two proposed routes. An open house for the proposed route is currently being organized for sometime in late March or early April.
A local resident. Leslie, offered a common concern for many in the area about the impact the proposed project may have on the Los Angeles River State Park.
“You don’t have to go through our park,” she said. “We don’t have parks.”
Leslie added that she supports the project but would prefer a route that didn’t include Cypress Park.
“We want high-speed rail,” she said. “But we want it somewhere else.”
The project is an example of the impact major state run initiative can have on small communities. Even with residents vehemently opposed to the project, the consensus in Cypress Park and the surrounding communities is that the project will move forward, and it is just a matter of what additional benefits residents can obtain to offset any negative impacts the rail line may create. As an example, committee chair Rourk Reagan, expressed a desire for the Authority to incorporate a subterranean tunnel through the Taylor Yard segment of the line. This tunnel, he said, would allow for a cover to be built that could double the size of the Los Angeles River State Park adjacent to the site. This proposal was later adopted by the committee as an official item for inclusion into a draft letter Reagan will send to the Authority.
The tunnel would represent a victory for advocates of the Los Angeles River Revitalization Plan, a major natural restoration project for much of the concrete-lined water way.
One committee member, who asked to remain anonymous, said she generally supports the project so long as it does not increase the noise pollution in the area.
“Is there going to be noise?” she asked. “I’m right next door and I hear the horns of [Union Pacific Corporation] trains all night long.”
As a homeowner, she has fruitlessly tried for years to persuade Union Pacific to alter its operations to reduce the noise during late hours. As a private company protected by federal law, Authority representatives acknowledged that the Authority has no oversight on the rail companies that currently utilize Taylor Yard.
“Yes, there will be noise,” Ortman answered bluntly.
Ortman said the high-speed line does not utilize horns. Ortman said the amount of noise the line will create would not be known until the EIR is completed sometime in the middle of 2011. He said a “noise analysis” is included in the report.
A big issue for residents, especially after several high-profile rail accidents, is train safety for a system that is proposed to boast speeds of over 200-miles-per-hour. Ortman, assured committee members that by design, the project will be safe because it requires as little interference as possible. For example, although one proposal requires the line to share a right-of-way with Union Pacific freight trains, the line itself will have separate tracks and will be barricaded to prevent collisions.
The line will limit access points to prevent accidents such as the 2005 incident when 11 people were killed after Juan Alvarez parked his sport utility vehicle on the tracks in Glendale in an aborted suicide attempt. A Metrolink train later smashed into the truck. Alvarez was convicted of murder and sentenced to 11 life terms in prison.
“I suppose anything is possible,” Ortman said. “The design of the station will have no access to the [train] system like Metrolink.”
As the forum concluded, committee members voted to look into a tunnel design with landscape covering as a focal point for community action. As the project moves forward, the committee will continue to hold forums to gather community input on additional measures stakeholders would like to see for any future project that is approved in the area. For more information on future GCPNC Land Use committee meetings contact Reagan at gestalted@earthlink.net.
On Oct. 2, 2009, the state submitted an application for more than $4.7 billion in federal stimulus money that, if approved, could provide $10 billion for the state’s high-speed rail project when state, local and private matching funds are added. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act set aside $8 billion for high-speed train development.
In 2008 California voters approved proposition 1A that set aside $10 billion in general funds as a down payment on a high-speed rail project. The proposed $40 billion project would take commuters from Los Angeles to San Francisco in as little as two-and-a-half hours. The regional network would include stations in other cities such as San Diego, Anahiem, Burbank, Bakersfield and San Jose. For more information on the high-speed rail project visit the Authority Web site at www.cahighspeedrail.ca.gov.
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January 14, 2010 Copyright © 2010 Eastern Group Publications, Inc.
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4 Responses to “High Speed Rail To Cross Taylor Yard”
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By all means, a tunnel is a good idea. But since a tunnel is being built, it doesn’t have to go under the river at Taylor Yards.
What about a bridge from Union Station to Radio Hill, then a tunnel to emerge above Interstate 5 at the Stadium Way interchange, where Riverside Drive goes under the freeway.
The tracks could cross above the freeway, and over the warehouses between Riverside Drive and the river itself (there are no houses in that area). Then, bridge the river and lay tracks next to the UPRR between the river and the new park. Build a small deck park to connect the new park to the river.
The people living at Taylor Yards still have a significant rail impact from UP. Bring the HSR across the river further north.
STUPID BEARER CITY
The Union Pacific trains blow their horns day and night.
City councilmembers, Jose Huisar, Ed Reyes and Eric Garcetti do nothing to try to stop the horns from blowing and bring some peace and quiet to Northeast.
And, it is not fair to people that live along the tracks, Elysian Valley and Cypress Park that they get all the noise. Looks like no one cares about them.
The high speed rail segment through Taylor Yard would be between Los Angeles Union Station and a station in Burbank on the main line heading north to San Francisco. The article incorrectly identifies the line as toward Pomona.
Many areas want a tunnel under their neighborhood to minimize impact. A tunnel costs many times that of other types of track. Money is tight and unless the community can raise the extra money themselves tunnels are not built.
The best alternative I have seen is building a trench along San Fernando road for the train lines. The trench would be covered at Rio de Los Angeles State Park effectively running in a tunnel in that area. This would eliminate the tracks currently running between the park and the Los Angeles river. The train noise in the adjacent neighborhood would be less that if the track were at the surface.
Editor’s Note: Thanks for bringing this to our attention. The line in question reads that the line will go from Pomona to Union Station in Downtown Los Angeles, and should read : “and continue on to Burbank, passing through Cypress Park and other Northeast Los Angles communities along the way.” An editing error cut the sentence short.