By rosebell
The final environmental approval required for a new railway between San Francisco and Los Angeles, was issued by California High-Speed Rail Authority.
In order to linking the downtown areas of the two cities, approval of the 61km section among Palmdale and Burbank paves the way.
Connecting the Antelope Valley to the San Fernando Valley in a roughly 17-minute train trip, speed of trains are up to 355km and the the journey time duration is more than twice as fast as traveling by car.
According to the Authority’s CEO, Brian Kelly: “This is a transformative project for the state of California as a whole, and today’s approval is a major milestone for connecting San Francisco to Los Angeles in less than three hours. It’s also transformational for Los Angeles County, connecting Palmdale to Burbank in a way that’s never been possible before.”
The approval moves this section closer to being shovel-ready as funding becomes available.
“Today’s approval is more than a historic milestone – it closes the gap between Los Angeles and San Francisco,” said Authority board chair Tom Richards.
Through linking future multimodal transport hubs in Palmdale and Burbank, the Palmdale to Burbank Project Section is due to connect two key population centres in Los Angeles County, whereas the section features almost 50km of tunneling, including 45km through mountains.
Considering that the intended path traverse the Angeles National Forest and San Gabriel Mountains, the approved alignment decreases the length of tunneling compared to other alternatives and digging through these regions minimizes impacts to communities and the environment.
All that remains to environmentally clear the full 795km Phase 1 system of the project is the Los Angeles to Anaheim segment, which the Authority expects to finalise next year.
In order to expanding the 191km currently beneath construction to 275km of future electrified high-speed rail from Merced to Bakersfield, this Authority has commenced work. At the moment over than 25 active construction sites existes in the Central Valley, with the Authority having now environmentally cleared 745km of the high-speed rail programme from the Bay Area to Los Angeles County.
