High-speed rail junction near Chowchilla, connecting to Gilroy, approved. What’s next?
A high-speed rail junction near Chowchilla to connect Gilroy and San Jose with the Central Valley was approved Thursday by a state board – more than eight years after approval of the rest of the proposed route between Fresno and Merced.
The California High-Speed Rail Authority’s board of directors certified the environmental analysis for the junction, officially called the Central Valley Wye.
The certification locks in the choice of an east-west line along the north side of Highway 152, with a north-south connection running along Road 11 west of Chowchilla. The Y-shaped junction will join the route coming to and from Gilroy with a north-south line near Highway 99 between Fresno and Merced.
Thursday’s unanimous votes were a three-part process: certifying the environmental analysis required under state law, formally adopting the Highway 152/Road 11 option from among four alternatives under consideration, and approving the environmental analysis and route approval under federal law.
“Today’s approval by the board represents another major milestone for this project,” authority CEO Brian Kelly said following the votes. “We now have completed the environmental reviews for the entire 171-mile stretch between Merced and Bakersfield.”
The authority originally adopted its Merced-Fresno route in May 2012. At that time, however, no consensus could be reached over how to connect the east-west line from the Bay Area to the north-south route, considered part of the “backbone” for what was at that time envisioned as a system linking San Francisco and Los Angeles by way of Fresno, Bakersfield and the Valley.
Officials at that time carved out a box around Chowchilla for more detailed analysis – a process that has taken eight years as rail planners try to balance the concerns of the city of Chowchilla, residents of the unincorporated community of Fairmead, and farmers in the surrounding countryside of Madera and Merced counties.
In January 2017, the board dubbed the Highway 152 / Road 11 option as the “preferred alternative” to be studied in detail for the environmental analysis.
Chowchilla officials have long been worried about the potential for routes to disrupt traffic circulation in and around the city; in 2011, then-mayor David Alexander decried the consideration of more than a dozen potential options for the wye junction as a “spaghetti bowl” of lines on a map.
Concerns remain
The Highway 152 alignment for the bullet-train tracks approved Thursday has Chowchilla leaders concerned about affecting traffic access from the highway to a new industrial park at the south edge of the city. Additionally, there is uncertainty over plans by the rail authority to connect nearby Fairmead to Chowchilla’s city wastewater system.
Residents of Fairmead, in the meantime, are worried about the sweeping arc of the rail line as it crosses east of Highway 99, effectively dividing the core of the small community from its northern end, as well as displacing residents in the path of the rail line.
But in the face of those concerns, the Highway 152 / Road 11 option was deemed to “strike the best balance” among the competing interests and represent the “least environmentally damaging practicable alternative,” said Gary Kennerly, the agency’s director of projects for Northern California.
“There are benefits that being adjacent to main transportation reduces impacts,” Kennerly told the rail board members in their teleconference. “We do recognize that 152 will displace a greater number of businesses. … It is a factor of looking at two transportation corridors” along Highway 152 and Highway 99.
Among Thursday’s package of votes was approval of a plan to offset some of the effects of the rail route on the city of Chowchilla, its school system, and the Fairmead community. That included calling for relocation assistance for residents and businesses that must move to make way for the tracks; establishment of a new community center in Fairmead, and providing connections for Fairmead to Chowchilla’s sewer system and a Madera County water system.
Chowchilla City Administrator Rod Pruett told the rail board Thursday that while he has appreciated the authority’s willingness to work with the city to resolve issues, “we feel that our concerns were not properly or adequately addressed.”
Pruett urged the board to delay a vote until there were signed agreements over solving the problems. “We believe the right thing to do is to have mitigation measures in place for the city of Chowchilla before approval” of the environmental documents,” he said.
What comes next?
Representatives from Fairmead, which has a population of about 1,500 people, also said they’re thankful for the rail authority’s engagement in discussions, but said they’d like to see a greater commitment by the authority to support an increase in affordable housing in the community.
Without it, some of the families who must move because of the rail route would likely leave the community rather than staying. “Our vision has always been to make Fairmead a better place to live,” said Vickie Ortiz, a leader of the nonprofit group Fairmead Community & Friends.
“Affordable housing would help regenerate the community with old and new residents. We’ve made progress over the years, but affordable housing is a priority for Fairmead.”
The environmental approvals and finalizing the route for the wye junction not only commits the rail authority to the binding set of measures to make up for the effects of the route and system operations on homes, farms and businesses, but also sets the stage for the rail authority to begin moving forward with buying the property it needs for the railroad right of way.
It potentially also advances the project toward awarding a contract for construction – but that may not happen until the agency has acquired enough land to mark a critical mass to begin work.
In addition to filling in the missing chunk of the path between Fresno and Bakersfield, the approvals also represent a step toward extending the line westward toward Gilroy, San Jose and eventually the San Francisco Peninsula. That’s a long-range goal, but it likely won’t happen for years until the state can figure out where it will get the billions of dollars needed to pay for the work – including the arduous task of tunneling through the mountains of Pacheco Pass west of Los Banos.
For now, that construction is on a back burner as the rail authority moves ahead with Gov. Gavin Newsom’s plan for developing interim operations between Merced and Bakersfield.
Construction is already under way on three separate sections of the rail route through the Valley, comprising about 119 miles from the northern fringe of Madera to Shafter, northwest of Bakersfield in Kern County.
This story was originally published September 11, 2020 at 7:00 AM with the headline "High-speed rail junction near Chowchilla, connecting to Gilroy, approved. What’s next?."
