The companies object to CHSRA's choice of a "hybrid alignment," which follows Union Pacific and BNSF tracks from Fresno to Merced. And they criticize the agency's refusal to adopt a route along Interstate 5 - a common theme among the recent spate of legal actions.
A second complaint, also filed in June, also alleges CEQA violations. In this action, private farms are joined by government agencies, including Madera County, the Chowchilla Water District, and the Farm Bureaus in Madera and Merced counties.
Again, petitioners criticize CHSRA's violation of environmental law and its abuse of discretion in approving the 75-mile Fresno to Merced section.
"[CHSRA] prejudicially abused their discretion, in violation of CEQA, by failing to consider the project as a whole, of which this section is but a piece. The whole of the project that should have been analyzed in this FEIR includes the proposed east-west connection to the Bay Area sections of the project. Respondents improperly deferred comparative analysis of three possible alternative east-west wye [sic] connections until a later stage of environmental review. In doing so, respondents failed to conduct an appropriate comprehensive environmental review, as is required by CEQA, for all project infrastructure that will significantly impact the Merced to Fresno region," the lawsuit states.
Again, CHSRA's refusal to look at an I-5 alternative is addressed, with petitioners claiming that public comments urged the rail authority to consider the I-5 corridor. They claim that CHSRA "improperly rejected feasible alternatives from the alternatives analysis, and analyzed only a narrow range of alternatives that would each have significant and unavoidable impacts."
The small city of Chowchilla's complaint against the rail authority, filed the same day as Madera County's action, paints an even more frightening picture. It claims that CHSRA's plan will split the town in half, and the agency refuses to do anything to mitigate it.
Chowchilla also claims that environmental reports fail to address noise, dust generated by trains, or any of its residents' comments. CHSRA also failed to address the trains' impact on the city's traffic projects or school bus routes, though it did so for the city of Madera, the city complains.
"No evaluation is made of blight impacts from potential population flight due to noise, traffic impacts, severance of town into two parts, and other negative impacts on Chowchilla's way of life, as was done for the City of Madera," the city says in its complaint.
Chowchilla also claims that by adopting the 2012 business plan of "blending" high-speed trains and old rail systems on shared infrastructure, CHSRA voided the 7-year-old EIR. CEQA allows use of environmental reports more than 5 years old "only if there have been no substantial changes to the circumstances under which the master EIR was certified, or that no new information has become available," the city says in its complaint.
"The Authority's 2012 plan envisions changes which include, in part, a much different 'blending' of High Speed Train and local systems than that upon which the master, 2005 Statewide Program EIR/EIS, was based," the city claims.
The common denominator among the three recent complaints filed against the rail authority, more than CEQA violations and allegations of not-so-public public decision-making, is Interstate 5.
According to a Los Angeles Times article on Monday, the effort to route the network through the more-populated center of the Valley rather than along I-5 was politically motivated from the beginning.
Desperate for federal funding, congressmen from districts from Bakersfield to Stockton pushed for the State Route 99 corridor plan and received then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's blessing. According to the Times, political experts agree that bypassing Fresno - California's fifth-largest city - would have killed any deal for federal funding.
But the Route 99 corridor requires more track and more stations, stops which will keep trains from traveling the distance required to reach the system's touted 220 mph. The decision to blend CHSRA and old rails will also hamper speed. And it's a decision that, while it might save some money down the road, cost CHSRA important, and much-needed, outside partnerships.
Japan Central Railway, which runs the famous Shinkansen bullet train in Japan, bailed on California's project after CHSRA decided on the rail-blending plan. And, according to the same LA Times story, the rail authority told the SNCF - which operates France's famous TGV network - that its help and opinions weren't wanted.
In 2010, SNCF offered California its expertise in building and operating the most successful high-speed railway in the world. The company suggested a competitive bidding process to partner with it or another experienced HSR builder, to identify a profitable route, keep building costs down, develop realistic ridership figures and attract private investors: all of which are requirements of voter-approved Prop 1A, and all of which have proven difficult for CHSRA.
SNCF recommended running the bullet train along I-5 through the Central Valley, where the rail authority could use state-owned and utility easements to avoid the costly and contentious eminent domain battles brewing along the Route 99 corridor. The company says it told the rail authority that I-5 is also the shortest, fastest and cheapest route to link San Francisco and Los Angeles, and estimated the cost of the link at $38 billion - far less than the CHSRA's wildly fluctuating $68-100 billion-plus estimates.
But in late 2011 CHSRA told the French company it wasn't interested in partnerships, and the agency's chairman said in a statement that it had never intended to have private companies involved in the development stage.
"Our business plan is predicated on having private operations after the initial system is built. Turning the design of the system over to a private operator would have been a bad financial move for California taxpayers," CHSRA Chairman Dan Richards said in a statement. He added: "SNCF's proposal was self-serving and not in the public interest."
For now, the rail authority plans to plunge develop along the Route 99 corridor despite the lawsuits, rising costs and a target completion date that's been pushed back from 2020 when voters approved Proposition 1A to at least 2028 today.
Voters have soured on the project, with an LA Times poll finding that 59 percent of voters would reject Prop 1A if it were on the ballot today.
And, as the plaintiffs in the Madera County action point out in their complaint, Sacramento judges have twice ruled in favor of a broad collection of Bay Area cities and organizations, and forced the CHSRA to rescind prior approvals and conduct new environmental reports. A ruling in February ordered the rail authority to decertify EIR approvals for the entire San Francisco-area network, according to the Madera complaint.
Nor is the language of Prop. 1A working in CHSRA's favor, which prohibits starting work on the rail network in the middle of nowhere and building "non-usable segments." In fact - as the LA Times reported this week -even the French are scoffing at California's fledgling rail authority.
"Simply put, the California High-Speed Rail Authority has a wish list, not a plan," SCNF said in a presentation. "This lack of an investment-grade business plan is a deadly defect, particularly in a project that by law cannot rely on government subsidies for its operation and maintenance."
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