SCV Talk · Archive
Nine years of the Valley’s town square · 2006–2015
SCV Talk
September 8, 2010· scvtalk.com · WordPress (SCVTalk 3.0) · Wayback capture

September 8, 2010 – Daily Brief

By Jeff — Jeff Wilson

  • Councilwomen Marsha McLean and Laurene Weste criticized plans for a 200+ mph high speed rail system that would pass through, but not stop in, Santa Clarita at a special study sessions with HSR representatives Tuesday night. McLean, who sits on the board of the proposed Orangeline Mag Lev train system (a rival Southern California-only magnetic levitation train system) says she doesn’t like that CA HSR would run on rails. Frank Ferry, however, noted that even if HSR doesn’t have a stop in the SCV, it could reduce traffic on the 14 since Antelope Valley commuters could get to downtown LA in as little as 25 minutes. HSR officials say much of the line running through the SCV would be underground SIGNAL
  • At last night’s Planning Commission meeting, Commissioners discussed whether to let restaurants in Old Town Newhall seat patrons outside on the sidewalk. Way Station Coffee Shop said they might give outdoor dinning “a shot.” The idea is to make Old Town Newhall a walkable village according city planners. KHTS
  • Albert Einstein academy is seeking an elementary school charter through the Newhall School District. Board members there will vote on the matter in October. SIGNAL
  • COC is displaying the work of a famous editorial cartoonist, Nixon enemy-lister, and three-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Paul Conrad. The exhibit has been on display at COC since last week; Conrad died earlier this week in Palos Verdes SIGNAL
  • They’re not calling it a “riot” yet, but that’s certainly the way last night’s protests  in LA appeared to me LA TIMES
  • 89 year old Santa Clarita man dies on I-5 accident after his wife loses control of their Lincoln on the 5 near the 210 on Saturday KHTS
  • City of Santa Clarita libraries will discard all books except Bibles, and not just any bibles, according to Kellar :”We’re talking Christian bibles,” explained Councilman Bob Kellar. “Not Muslim bibles, not Jew bibles, not whacko environmentalist bibles.” SCV UNINCORPORATED
  • John Colbert, a former Sheriff’s Deputy who grew up in Santa Clarita, is running as a conservative Republican congressional candidate against Burbank’s Adam Schiff. I figured since our own Congressional race isn’t very interesting you should read up on this one. BURBANK LEADER
  • California may raise the age of kids eligible to enter kindergarten. Currently you have to be 5 years old by December 2. Beginning in 2014-2015, your kid will have to be 5 years old by September 2 (which means you better have a baby RIGHT NOW if you want him to get into kindergarten by the 2015-2016 school year). Our own George Runner likes the bill but takes issue with some who believe that 4 year olds should go to a sort of Pre-kindergarten (but not Preschool!) school instead MERC NEWS
  • In rural Madera County, a group calling itself the “American Nationalist Brotherhood” claimed responsibility for smashing the window of a mosque and leaving behind a sign that said “Wake up America, the enemy is here.” The LA Times notes that there are about 200 Muslims in the area, many of whom are doctors LA TIMES
  • Speaking of mosque angst, a great LTE on the subject

Comments (33)

  1. ScottESeptember 8, 2010 at 5:34 am
    Yeah, none a them fag bibles. Damn straight. Awesometown…
  2. CCSeptember 8, 2010 at 8:13 am
    Marsha should have stomped her tap shoe to get attention.
  3. Marsha McLeanSeptember 8, 2010 at 9:26 am
    Santa Clarita residents wanting to get to downtown L.A. via CA Hi Speed rail would have to either drive to Palmdale or the proposed station in the San Fernando Valley – or take public transportation and it could add up to 45 minutes. Instead of taking 25 minutes it would possibly take over an hour to get to Union Station. I take Metrolink now when I have meetings in L.A. and it takes me about 50 minutes from the Newhall Metrolink Station. If people have to drive to Palmdale or the San Fernando Valley, it totally defeats the proposed purpose of taking traffic off of our freeways.
  4. gregory molineriSeptember 8, 2010 at 12:39 pm
    Marsha, Marsha, Marsha! There are many proposed benefits other than the single one you cite. From their website: High speed trains will further boost California’s economy by: Improving the movement of people, goods and services throughout the state; Generating more than $1 billion in annual revenue surplus; Reducing travel times for train riders; Reducing delays to air and auto travelers as freeways and airports are relieved of congestion; Reducing air pollution and related health care costs; Reducing auto accident fatalities and injuries and related health care costs. The real benefit of such a system in my view is that it shrinks the state for transfer of goods and people. People or companies doing business in L.A. or S.F. or San Jose could be located in Visalia or Bakersfield and get to their markets without forcing more homes and cars into these metro areas. The alternative is endless densification in the metro areas with no hope of ever providing infrastructure to accommodate it. If you want to reduce cars on the road going south from SCV, then quit racing to approve homes here. The epic fail of this council and staff has been the countless hearing hours spent on paint colours and landscape design while ignoring our increasingly unsustainable approach of rubberstamped homebuilder approvals. The problem for our residents is not a 10-mile drive to a high-speed rail station, but a city council that fails to plan for anything but re-election. I was ashamed last night.
  5. rosieraySeptember 8, 2010 at 5:19 pm
    amen
  6. Coastal SageSeptember 8, 2010 at 8:09 pm
    The words above are nice rhetoric, but I’m not seeing anything in the HSRA official environmental documents about movement of freight on this line. If they are thinking of moving freight, they will have to start all over to scope the content of their EIRs to cover “risks of upset” when high speed freight trains, conceivably carrying toxics, crash. That’s the law in California. So how about re-thinking what you have to say in the context of moving people only?
  7. gregory molineriSeptember 9, 2010 at 10:09 am
    When you say “rhetoric,” are you referring to the quote I referenced from the HSR website or my remarks? The quote may be rhetoric but it’s theirs. As for my remarks, they dealt entirely with movement of people. What exactly do I need to rethink?
  8. rosieraySeptember 8, 2010 at 5:20 pm
    hmmm how come you don’t take Santa Clarita Transit, you certainly promoted it when they were changing the schedules that affected the commuters
  9. gregory molineriSeptember 8, 2010 at 9:37 am
    I attended the meeting last night and McLean was a complete buffoon. She talked down to the presenters and embarrassed herself repeatedly. She is obviously upset that someone is taking away her mag-lev train, her sole source of relevance for the past half decade. The worst part was her brainless questioning and accusations about improper application of technology and engineering. Why does a window washer’s wife think she knows how to design mass high speed rail systems and commercial developments? To reveal such ignorance with such disdain is a total embarrassment and Weste was no better. The Signal’s headline that the “City Is Upset” over the issue was misleading. These two women don’t represent the city and many recent votes prove that. Besides, why complain now? This rail system and the station locations were known to us over a year ago. How shameful for council members to behave this way. McLean should put both tap shoes in our mouth and stop embarrassing herself and our city.
  10. mikeSeptember 8, 2010 at 9:59 am
    Interesting take Greg. I was put off by the city’s assertion, and more so the Signal’s parroting of the same, that we will get all of the drawbacks but none of the benefits of the high speed rail. This is completely absurd. I wish we had a station, but I also don’t want a train that snakes through every Assembly district and stops every ten minutes. The northern SFV and the AV are more logical choices and Sylmar is a very short drive to catch the train. If the closest stop were in Glendale, we might have a beef. But to the people tasked with planning a project on this scale, McLean’s provincialism must be laughable.
  11. Berta González-HarperSeptember 8, 2010 at 10:10 am
    @mike, as of last night the closet stops are either Burbank or Palmdale. They appear to be eliminating Sylmar and others in the SFV and there are zero planned here.
  12. mikeSeptember 8, 2010 at 10:19 am
    Oh, that is disappointing. Is there a current list of stops anywhere?
  13. Berta González-HarperSeptember 8, 2010 at 10:49 am
    @mike, they keep changing the “potential” stops. One reason is that communities are threatening to sue because of noise and other negative impacts. Acton, Agua Dulce and certain areas of the SCV will hear these 1,200 ft trains whizzing by at 110-220 mph, 12 trains per hour, metal wheels on metal tracks, carrying they say 700-1,100 passengers. You can see this information at http://www.cahighspeedrail.ca.gov I rode high-speed trains in Spain about 4 years ago. They are noisy, tracks and stations take up a lot of room. They do not use the same tracks other trains use. In Spain, trains were primarily above ground. You had to lift yourself and bags etc up several feet just to get on board the train. Even with steps, not easy for us older folks and certainly not user friendly for people carrying laptops etc, the handicapped or infirm. They are fast and much more expensive to take than regular trains. The tunnels proposed through Santa Clarita will go through several “known” earthquake faults. No mention anywhere of the “unknown” faults since as we are aware they become “known” by rupturing. People getting on in Palmdale going south would have to go directly to Union Station to go high-speed so unless you work very close to Olvera Street, etc, a 2nd or 3rd transportation method is required anyway. Going elsewhere south, no express train and transfers from Metrolink or whatever are necessary. I will stay above ground thanks. In my opinion, the whole project stinks for the SCV area. Another waste of BILLIONS of taxpayer dollars.
  14. ToddSeptember 8, 2010 at 12:33 pm
    Berta, the dangers are no different for a train if its below grade or at-grade. Thats just silly. If a fault is going to rupture, then it ruptures at the surface just the same. Your assertion, if it were truly based on earthquake safety, would be to have no train at all. The rationale for the train running underground is due to the high speed and the very wide turning radius required. I think I heard somewhere that the sharpest turn that these trains can do is a 2 mile radius. The HSR website has a detailed google map showing the proposed alignment and how it runs through the valley. Mostly parallel to the 14. Remember, also, trains cannot climb the same grades that cars can, so while we’re going up hill then down to Newhall Ave, then up and down again to Placerita, then back up to Golden Valley and back down, the train (still turning at this point) needs to remain relatively level.
  15. Berta González-HarperSeptember 8, 2010 at 12:53 pm
    @Todd, I agree that an earthquake will be felt above ground as well as below ground but the big difference is you are less likely to be “trapped” above ground than you would be below ground. These trains would also tunnel through our aquifer per their own comments last night. I would not want to be underground through the aquifer during a major seismic event where you could potentially have flooded tunnels as well as being buried underground. Most Metrolink and Maglev trains run primarily above ground. As I said, I will stay above ground. Besides very few people from Santa Clarita are going to jump in the car, drive to Palmdale, to take the train to Union Station and then have to take a bus, taxi, or whatever to get to work. Not practical and Santa Clarita literally gets the shaft without the benefits.
  16. Need for Involved CitizenrySeptember 8, 2010 at 1:23 pm
    Berta: An aquifer is not like a lake that is underground surrounded by rock. Rather it is soil or rock that is permeable and holds water in its small open spaces. In the event of a rupture, there would be very slow water infiltration into a tunnel, not a flood of water. But I know you know everything so this explanation is probably in vain.
  17. Berta González-HarperSeptember 8, 2010 at 4:35 pm
    @NFIC, well as the expert yourself I am sure you are aware you can drown in just a few inches of water, especially if you are trapped in a train car and unable to move. You are welcome to travel underground.
  18. ToddSeptember 8, 2010 at 5:42 pm
    Berta, I’m pretty sure that engineers have figured out well how to constructtunnels in areas that deal with water issues. Theres a pretty neat tunnel that runs under the English Channel from England to France… and then theres that Trans Bay Tube that doesn’t even go underground as it shuttles hundredsof thousands of people per day underneath the bay!
  19. BrianSeptember 8, 2010 at 6:27 pm
    I would think the closet stop would be West Hollywood. One could always take Metrolink to Sylmar.
  20. gregory molineriSeptember 8, 2010 at 10:19 am
    mike, that is 100% correct. You can’t have a high-speed rail that stops every 10 miles. Sylmar is a short hop to catch the train for us and Palmdale makes sense as L.A.’s northernmost stop. SCV’s topography limits our options and this is the wrong place for council members to stand firm for our residents. To suggest, as they did last night, that they just tunnel under Santa Clarita is unfruitful and childish.
  21. DamageincSeptember 8, 2010 at 10:38 am
    It is a short jog for people in Sylmar to drive to Santa Clarita.
  22. Berta González-HarperSeptember 8, 2010 at 10:08 am
    @Gregory, I was also at this meeting and did not take away what you did. I thought Marsha and Laurene asked good questions. Laurene particularly affirmed my comments that under the current plan Santa Clarita gets all of the bother with none of the benefits. I think we need either to have a station here or not be bothered with the negative impacts. Since the California High Speed Rail Authority does not have the money yet to build, “our segment” there may still be an opportunity to gain some concessions for our trouble or have other changes made to benefit our community IF this high-speed train line is ever built. I also was a bit dismayed by Bob Kellar’s behavior. After Marsha asked several questions, he asked Marsha if her questions would take until midnight, and he then left the meeting. Since the questions lasted another 10 minutes or so, his barbed comments and leaving early came off as brusque and rude. Sorry, Bob you know I support you but your fellow council members deserve a lit more respect than that. I understand you are impatient with lots of questions, but that is also part of the job, hearing EVERYBODY out in my humble opinion. The others stayed until the end. There are still many unknowns with this project.
  23. GRAMPSSeptember 8, 2010 at 4:42 pm
    Gregory why so harsh?
  24. FrankSeptember 8, 2010 at 10:16 am
    This is a disturbing trend of arrests made in the Canyon Oaks Condos, I am glad the SCV Sheriffs are catching them. http://www.the-signal.com/section/36/article/32642/ http://www.the-signal.com/section/36/article/32714/ http://www.the-signal.com/section/36/article/32773/ http://www.the-signal.com/section/36/article/33274/
  25. gregSeptember 8, 2010 at 12:58 pm
    I dont view the HSR as a commute option between Santa Clarita and Downtown Los Angeles. I never did. You have to view it more as a travel option between regions. I would definitely drive to Burbank or Palmdale to get to San Francisco. You have to think of it like Burbank Airport. While its not in Santa Clarita, its still relatively close and provides good alternatives to LAX if traveling within the State. WHile I’m not an expert on High Speed Rail, I’ve read alot about it. I believe pricing would be more close to airline prices. I thought I read somewhere that a price point from Palmdale to Union Station would be something in the $20 range. I dont think its a viable commute option and is not meant to be a commute option. Its more of a longer distance/regional system.
  26. gregSeptember 8, 2010 at 12:59 pm
    I also forgot to say that its not meant to compete with Metrolink. I think that’s where Marsha and Laurene have it wrong. They’re thinking of it more of a commuter train but in reality its more long haul.
  27. gregory molineriSeptember 8, 2010 at 1:05 pm
    Exactly.
  28. LindaSSeptember 8, 2010 at 1:07 pm
    For me, I actually dont want a CA HSR station in our city. If anyone has read the requirements of a proposed station on the CA HSR page, a station would need to provide 6,000 parking spots (roughly the number at the Valencia Town Center), and a mile of straight track (takes a mile for the train to stop). It would literally be the size of an airport. When people in our city complain about a 3-story building in our town, this is going to be huge. I dont think people understand the scale. For me, I think Santa Clarita is getting all the benefits without the burden. A station in Burbank and/or Palmdale is about 20 miles away and would open up short trip times to points north to San Francisco and south to San Diego. Most of the route will be underground and to the east of the City; other areas in the LA Area will be above ground Plus, if there was a station in our City, it would be a huge traffic generator and create traffic issues on our roads.
  29. Alan FerdmanSeptember 8, 2010 at 4:32 pm
    LindaS Excellent point. The footprint of the HSR stations is huge. The impact to some local SCV neighborhoods would be devastating. But one additional problem is the impact of an HSR system on existing local roads. At the last meeting I attended, the HSR team indicated that there would be no HSR “at-grade crossings”. All crossings of “above ground” HSR rail would require tunneling under the HSR track. Couple that with the reality that all dissected roads would not be provided a way across the track equals greater driving distance for those individuals impacted. There are lots of questions to be answered. If you want another opportunity to talk directly with the HSR team they will be presenting Wednesday, September 15, 7 to 9PM at the Canyon Country Advisory Committee. The meeting will be held at the Mint Canyon Moose Family Center, 18000 Sierra Highway, in Canyon Country. Remember, at this meeting the audience will get to ask the questions.
  30. ToddSeptember 8, 2010 at 5:49 pm
    Given the current proposed alignment, the only potential place they could have it would be basically out in Soledad Canyon. Again, if you’re really looking to use it to get to SFO, Sacramento or San Diego, hop the Metrolink to Union Station then go. It’ll still take you way less time than driving and possibly (depending on where you fly from) flying.
  31. Coastal SageSeptember 8, 2010 at 7:34 pm
    When the formation of the HSR Commission was announced roughly 10 years ago, I was immediately suspicious because a woman Democrat lawyer I knew, who was well connected and a politically correct racem was trying to get hired on the ground floor to do their legal work, because it would produce a ton of revenue. This was a woman who couldn’t lawyer he way out of a speeding ticket, so I had my doubts about her ability to do good work for the HSRA. However, I had no doubt that she was smart enough to see big dollar signs ahead. Out of curiosity, this week I read the “Scoping Meeting Reports” on two segments of the train route, Bakersfield to Palmdale and Palmdale to Downtown L.A. Given the cost of condemning the land for this train track and bridges, let alone the cost of building the track, I concluded that the politicians who put HSR together were either totally nuts, profoundly corrupt, or running a consultant/lawyer scam to spend a lot of money planning the train route even if it would be dropped as too costly. Here are some of the gems I read when in the Scoping Meeting Reports about the “final” route of the train which the HSRA has already decided (Bakersfield to Tehachapi to west of Mohave to Lancaster through SCV to Burbank, Glendale and then Downtown LA): Bakersfield High School, with its beautiful old auditorium, would be torn down because the train would go right through it In traveling up the pass between Arvin and Tehachapi, the train would have to gain roughly 2000′ in elevation, in the canyons now surrounding Route 58. Gigantic long suspension bridges would have to be built from mountain to mountain. (Think Switzerland.) The railroad which owns the famous and treacherous Tehachapi Loop tunnel says it is physically impossible for a 200+ mph train to use their tunnel, and even if it could they are absolutely refusing to allow their right of way and tunnel to be used anyway, because of safety concerns for freight trains which are the users of that track and tunnel. The train would displace and disrupt a major wind energy farm between Tehachapi and Mojave. (So much for being a “green” train.) The railroad which owns the right of way for the train line between Mojave and Downtown L.A. absolutely refuses to “share its tracks” with the 200 mph HRA train because of the incompatibility of freight trains and high speed trains (After the Chatsworth crash, the railroad supplemented its comment saying think Chatsworth crash times 3 in terms of magnitude of disaster). The railroad says the right of way which it owns, and which it says cannot be condemned without the Federal government’s approval, is only 100′ wide, and it has already given up a substantial portion of that width for parallel Metrolink tracks from Lancaster south. The railroad says it is not going to allow the HSR into its right of way for safety reasons, including the curving nature of the train right of way through Soledad Canyon. Metrolink also says the HSR can’t run on its track or right of way because it would be unsafe in terms of Metrolink’s slower trains. So the public has to pay for a whole separate train right of way all the way from Mojave to Downtown. At the Shambala Big Cat preserve, in Soledad Canyon, the existing train track runs on a little cliff west of where the big cat habitats are, with the cat habitats going right up to the cliff. If the HSR is built, a substantial portion of Shambala’s preserve would be taken for the HSR track right of way, forcing the public to pay to buy land for and build a new Shambala complex somewhere else. This is called “severance damages” which the state/public is required to pay when a facility is rendered unusable because a very substantial part is to be condemned. The Federal government has told HSRA that it will not agree to the placing of any part of the HSR track on Federally owned land, which primarily impacts the route between Palmdale and SCV. As the HSR train approaches Santa Clarita, it will most likely be in the river bed, which raises all sorts of engineering issues relating to liquifaction in the event of an earthquake, plus endangered/protected species issues with U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, EPA and Fish & Game, plus Army Corps of Engineers permit requirements insuring, among other things that the train track embankments will not impede the flow of the river when it is in flood stage. Apparently as the HSR runs from Sylmar/San Fernando to the riverbed south of Burbank, the HSRA planned to run the tracks at grade level, cutting off many east-west streets in the San Fernando Valley and building only a few grade separated crossings. At the scoping meetings, someone asked HSRA how they were going to keep pedestrians off the track, since so many people already die in that stretch of Metrolink’s track. There was no answer at this time. Burbank is freaking out over what will happen to my most unfavorite intersection, where Buena Vista crosses the existing Metrolink next to San Fernando Road. That crossing is at grade level, and the NTSB has already declared it highly unsafe and needing a grade separation for the Metrolink train alone. Burbank is insistent that Buena Vista and San Fernando Road are among their most important intersections, that it can’t be shut, and that HSRA will have to build an elaborate grade separation which will take both the HSR and Metrolink over or under Buena Vista, without complicating the use of that intersection with San Fernando Road. Glendale is equally upset about the HSR disrupting the traffic patterns in their cities, and demanding grade separated crossings. At that point, I stopped reading because I realized that all of these monumentally expensive logistical hurdles are simply insanity, given the State of California’s financial status. There are at least 10 other ridiculously complicated problems along the train’s route from Bakersfield to Downtown LA, which I haven’t detailed, but I recommend reading HRA’s Scoping Meeting Reports on their websites. I have been through HSR’s website in detail, and there is simply no detailed break down in terms of the COSTS of buying land for track right of way, and no intelligent discussion of the COST of overcoming major engineering hurdles which have to be addressed, let alone the need to create grade separated track at major intersections. It is clear from the reports written by HSR’s consultants so far, that they are absolutely clueless about the terrain, buildings, roads and facilities their chosen route will impact, let alone the cost of fixing problems which have to be addressed. If there is anyone sane in the Legislature in Sacramento, it is clearly time to kill the HSR right now. On a cost, benefit basis, it isn’t going to be worth it for California’s taxpayers….unless the train goes straight from Glendale to the Grapevine. Of course, the HSR website and the related environmental impact scoping reports do not even consider the less expensive approach of eliminating the huge loop in the train’s route needed to create the Palmdale station. I will be long dead and California will be permanently mired in a Chapter 9 bankruptcy before this train gets built. In the meantime, politically savvy schemers like my friend will have milked the state for billions because of their political rather than cost effective decision making on the route of this high speed train.
  32. Berta González-HarperSeptember 9, 2010 at 10:22 am
    @J, very good research. Thanks. I would also add that as I recall when we were asked to vote to approve the additional expenditures for the “northern spur” bringing the high speed rail line in from parallel to the 5 freeway it was specifically to capture potential riders from the Santa Clarita and Antelope Valley’s. It was not disclosed that there would NOT be ANY stops in the SCV. I call this tactic “bait and switch”. As I said before, a colossal waste of taxpayer funds.
  33. Spineflower2September 9, 2010 at 10:14 am
    “Gallery hours are Monday through Thursday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. ” I guess they don’t really want us to see Conrad’s work, do they?

Preserved as part of the SCV Talk Archive. Text is presented as originally published; presentation has been standardised for readability. The original capture is available at the Internet Archive.

Support