Santa Clarita Valley residents would get all the bother and none of the benefit of a multibillion-dollar high-speed rail line proposed by a state agency, if it’s approved as planned.
The Santa Clarita City Council will meet Tuesday with representatives from the California High Speed Rail Authority to discuss their concerns with the Palmdale to Los Angeles segment of the $45-billion, 800-mile train line, which would extend from San Francisco to Los Angeles.
According to a map at the rail authority’s website, the train would travel west from Palmdale and roughly follow Highway 14 south to Newhall Pass.
But it wouldn’t stop here. Santa Clarita Valley residents would have to catch the train either in Sylmar or Palmdale.
“We’re concerned that we would get all of the impacts of the high speed rail but none of the benefits,” city spokeswoman Gail Ortiz said.
And the city wouldn’t be offered any money to offset the headaches, either.
“We’re expected to absorb the impacts,” Ortiz said.
City Manager Ken Pulskamp said in a memo to the City Council that neighborhoods, the city’s open space areas, expansion of the Disney/ABC Studios at the Ranch would all be challenged by construction of the train system.
The rail line would also be close to the proposed Cemex mine, which has been battled for years, and would have “both visual and noise impairments,” Pulskamp wrote in the memo.
The City Council study session will be 5:30 p.m. Tuesday in the Century Room at City Hall, 23920 Valencia Blvd., Valencia 91355.