SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A proposed route between the San Joaquin Valley and the San Francisco Bay Area for California’s bullet-train system received final approval Thursday from the California High Speed Rail Authority.
The agency’s board of directors, meeting in Sacramento, voted to certify a massive four-volume report of environmental and social impacts that the route would have on communities, farms, parks and wildlife habitats along the 89-mile stretch of the line from San Jose through Gilroy into Merced County.
That vote set the stage for a second action that formally approved the preferred route, filtered out over a years-long process from among four options involving crossing the Diablo Range via Pacheco Pass west of Los Banos.
Among key features of the route are plans for a 13.5-mile tunnel through the mountains north and east of the San Luis Reservoir, and about 15 miles of elevated tracks to carry the high-speed trains above highways on the San Francisco Peninsula and over canals and environmentally sensitive wetlands in the San Joaquin Valley.
Between Gilroy and San Jose, the trains will largely operate on tracks shared with the existing Caltrain commuter rail system.
One unique feature proposed for the route in western Merced County is a 3-mile stretch of low-profile viaduct as the tracks cross through the Grasslands Ecological Area north of Los Banos. That segment would also include some form of enclosure to not only reduce the prospect of noise from trains startling birds and other wildlife as they pass, but also to protect birds from electrocution by alighting on the overhead electrical lines that power the trains.
Among four major alternatives identified by planners since 2009, the chosen option involves the fewest displacements of homes, businesses and farm structures, and would permanently take about 1,033 acres of “important farmland” out of production, mostly in the San Joaquin Valley.
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