California High-Speed Rail Gains Final Approval

The long-awaited California high-speed rail (HSR) project that would link San Francisco and Los Angeles just gained a final, key approval for the last segment of the route.

According to an article by Jay Barmann in SFist, “The final segment that had been awaiting approval was a 38-mile stretch connecting Palmdale to Burbank, and as KTLA reports, that approval came on Thursday from the California High-Speed Rail Authority Board of Directors, which approved the final environmental impact report and route.”

The segment will involve 27 miles of tunnels through mountains in the Angeles National Forest and San Gabriel Mountains leading from the San Fernando Valley to the Central Valley.

Funding, however, is another issue, with the LA-to-San Francisco segment falling roughly $100 billion short. “On the plus side, the federal government has offered up a $3.4 billion grant for extending Caltrains tracks under SoMa to Salesforce Transit Center. And the work on the electrified tracks needed for the high-speed rail between SF and San Jose, which will be shared with Caltrain, is largely complete.”