California High-Speed Rail Authority and the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) released for public review and comment, a Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Report/Environmental Impact Statement for the Fresno – Bakersfield section of the California High-Speed Rail System.
The official comment started in November and will end in January 2018.
The Draft Supplemental EIR/EIS provides a detailed analysis of the Locally Generated Alternative and compares that alignment to the Preferred Alternative identified in the 2014 Final EIR/EIS for the same
geographic area between Shafter and Bakersfield.
This document supplements the 2014 Final EIR/EIS for the Fresno – Bakersfield section and is focused
on the southern portion of the alignment between Poplar Avenue in Shafter and a station location in Bakersfield.
When the Final EIR/EIS was certified in May 2014, and a “Preferred Alternative” identified, the Authority elected to defer an alignment decision in the Bakersfield area, whereas the FRA approved the Preferred Alternative in its entirety.
The 2014 Final EIR/EIS evaluated alignments that generally followed the existing BNSF tracks from Shafter into Bakersfield. Since then, a new alignment was developed, known as the Locally Generated Alternative, extending from Shafter east towards State Route 99 and the existing Union Pacific tracks, then southward into Bakersfield.
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