SAVE ANGELES FOREST FOR EVERYONE
Fighting the High Speed Train Since 2014
S.A.F.E. was organized to stop the California High Speed Rail Authority from building train routes within the Palmdale to Burbank project section that damaged our local communities, the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument and the Angeles National Forest. The so-called “East Corridor” includes routes that would travel approximately 41 miles over, under and through our communities and open space. Locally impacted communities include: Kagel Canyon, Lake View Terrace, Sunland-Tujunga, Shadow Hills, La Tuna Canyon and Sun Valley. Potential impacts, from both operational and construction phases, include damage to our community character, water resources, visual and aesthetics, noise and vibration, truck traffic and air quality, human and animal health, equestrian culture and industry and economy. We are working in unity with neighboring communities similarly impacted by high speed rail proposals including Pacoima, San Fernando, Santa Clarita, Acton and Agua Dulce.
Don’t Railroad Our Communities! Read all the facts and history of this project and get involved!
Rendering of Route E2 viewed from Shadow Hills
CHSRA Board unanimously approved the Palmdale to Burbank EIR at their
Board Meeting on June 27 -- the entire SF to LA section is now environmentally cleared
Public comment was limited to 2 minutes
What they ignored or dismissed:
* Two Stanford/MIT engineers' (with 60 years of experience between them) 40-page report on the danger of tunnels and earthquakes
* 4.9 million truck trips and 242,836,400 truck miles to remove tunnel spoils
* Scores of permanent maintenance areas on the Angeles Forest floor for accessing tunnels and adits
* Best case, the project's CO2 emissions will take 30-70 years to recoup IF ridership is robust
*Dewatering of the Angeles National Forest
What they feigned concern in:
* Lost businesses and homes
* Tunnel integrity during an earthquake
What they believed:
* Everything the CHSRA staffers told them, including "don't worry the contractors will figure it out," and "that's old technology, we are using state of the art technology," including equipment that has not yet been invented
* That this is a green project and even though it will emit tons of CO2 during construction, it will be recouped in just a few months
So, the CHSRA staffers and presenters had hours to make their one-sided argument on why the EIR should be approved on selected material from 14,000 pages of the DEIR (including questions submitted by stakeholders, elected officials, and other governmental agencies), and the public had 2 minutes each to make theirs. It was embarrassingly clear by some of the naive board members' questions, they hadn't read much, if anything.
Read SAFE's letter here and the commissioned report here.
Links to meetings are here:
June 26: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uY7ftg7ZduU
June 27: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFK-AOEHJYQ
The good news is that SAFE prevailed in eliminating routes E1 and E2 which would have irreparably harmed our communities.
The Latest News
Refined SR14Ais the Preferred Alternative
*5-28-24: ABC News: Congressional Republicans Demand Information on California's High Speed Train Project
*5-4-24: NY Post: California mocked over $11 billion high-speed rail bridge to nowhere that took 9 years to build
*1-4-24: Wall Street Journal: Biden’s $3.1 Billion Train Ticket to Nowhere
*12-30-23: Los Angeles Times: Opinion: Does anyone want the bullet train? Hoping for L.A. to S.F. in three hours feels lonely
*12-25-23: Los Angeles Times: Time to get real on the bullet train: California is building it, so let’s make it work
* May 2023: Orange County Register: The cost of high-speed rail in California might surprise you
* 03-16-23: Citwatch LA: Would you vote for $100 billion in bonds for high speed rail?
* 03-07-23: CalMatters: New cost estimate for high-speed rail puts California bullet train $100 billion in the red
* Read the Burbank Airport Authority v. California High Speed Rail lawsuit here
* 2022 Business Plan
* Burbank to Los Angeles Project Section
Burbank will lose 75% of its local water supply for an extended period of time and over 130 businesses, and the brand-new Avion development near the airport will have to be demolished at a cost of nearly $1 billion.
Burbank Area Potential Property Impacts Map Large file – Enlarge to 100% to see property and street names.
Final Environmental Impact Report/Environmental Impact Statement – Burbank to LA Project Section
* Burbank Airport Authority Files Lawsuit Against CHSRA - LA Times 2-25-22
