California high-speed rail may perpetually find itself in the political line of fire, but at least it's about to clear the CEQA gauntlet.

The high speed rail authority has released the final environmental impact report for the 30-mile Los Angeles-to-Anaheim segment of the system, which represents the final leg of the first phase of the project between Southern California and the San Francisco Bay Area. The recommended alternative emerging from the final report calls for high-speed trains to share track with Amtrak and Metrolink trains between Los Angeles Union Station and ARTIC in Anaheim, as well as the construction of a maintenance and storage facility at 26th Street in Vernon.

CAHSR Union station to Anaheim routeCAHSRA

Full grade separations of the rail corridor would be built at Pioneer Boulevard, Norwalk Boulevard, Los Nietos Road, Cerritos Avenue, and State College Boulevard, and eight existing grade crossings would be retained in the City of Anaheim. The project will also require modifications to several existing stations passenger rail stops, including those in Commerce, Buena Park, Fullerton, and Norwalk, will also be required.

Left on the cutting room floor were plans for intermediate stops at either Norwalk/Santa Fe Spring or Fullerton, which were at risk of being dropped from the project last year due to cost concerns. The growing price tag for the project has also been blamed for the planned retention of existing grade-level crossings in Anaheim and the cancellation of a proposed BNSF rail yard in Colton.

A final decision on all of the above items is to be made at a vote by the California high-speed rail authority's board later this month.

Aerial view of California High Speed Rail trains leaving Union Station through proposed run-through tracksCAHSRA

Also complicating this is a lawsuit filed by the City of Vernon, which took aim at the proposed expansion of the BNSF Malabar rail yard to facilitate the Link Union Station project by Metro. While technically a separate project, the run-through tracks included in Link Union Station are key to plans for California's high-speed rail system.

Nonetheless, the cost of the system has led to many questions as to whether the high-speed rail system will ever reach Los Angeles. The Trump administration has clawed back grant money previously allocated to the project, even as work continues for a more than 100-mile corridor in the Central Valley, with the aim of starting service on the project's initial operating service in the early 2030s. 

The Brightline West project, which would run between Las Vegas and Rancho Cucamonga, has not spent as much time as a political football, has seen its own setbacks. Besides an ever-growing price tag, the project's Florida counterpart has teetered on the verge of bankruptcy.

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