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.
