High Speed Rail: Accommodating Freight and Passengers on the L.A.-to-Anaheim Route

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The California High Speed Rail Authority today released additional elements of its 2007 scoping plan for the thirty-mile Los Angeles-to-Anaheim section of the project. A thirty-day comment period seeks public input on these new elements to help inform the environmental review process.

This southern section of the project, connecting Union Station in downtown L.A. to the Anaheim Regional Transportation Intermodal Center (ARTIC), will use the existing Los Angeles-San Diego-San Luis Obispo (LOSSAN) rail corridor. This runs through the cities of Los Angeles, Vernon, Commerce, Bell, Montebello, Pico Rivera, Norwalk, Santa Fe Springs, La Mirada, Buena Park, Fullerton, and Anaheim, as well as portions of unincorporated Los Angeles County. The busy rail corridor is already used by Metrolink and Amtrak, as well as freight services.

To make sure freight operations can continue during construction and operation of the future high-speed passenger service, CAHSRA plans to relocate part of BNSF’s freight rail operations. This would involve building new freight facilities in San Bernardino, currently planned as a new intermodal facility in Colton, and staging tracks in Lenwood, near Barstow.

More information can be found here.

Written comments can be submitted to CAHSRA through September 24, either online, here, via email to Los.Angeles_Anaheim [at] hsr.ca.gov, or by actual old-fashioned mail, addressed to Los Angeles to Anaheim Revised Scoping Comment, 770 L Street, Suite 620, MS-2, Sacramento, CA 95814.

Also, the public is invited to attend an telephone town hall on September 3, or a virtual meeting where presentations will be made and oral comments will be accepted. During all three events, an online open house will also be available for perusal.

Two meetings are scheduled. Log on here at the proper moment.

• Thursday, Sept. 10, 2020, 5 p.m.-7:30 p.m.
  Presentación en español comienza a las 6:30 p.m.
• Saturday, Sept. 12, 2020, 10 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
  Presentación en español comienza a las 11:30 a.m.

Note also that the public comment period on the Environmental Impact Report for the fourteen-mile Burbank-to-L.A. portion of the program is closing on August 31. That route  would use existing railroad right-of-way along the Los Angeles River through the cities of Burbank, Glendale, and Los Angeles, with proposed stations near the Hollywood Burbank Airport and Union Station.

In addition, L.A. Metro is considering using money from a canceled freeway project to connect to the planned XpressWest HSR to Las Vegas.