Archinect - News

First California High-Speed Rail segment in LA County gets final EIR approvals

2024-07-09T11:18:00-04:00

The penultimate segment of the forthcoming California High-Speed Rail connection from Southern California to the San Francisco Bay Area has been approved for construction. The stretch begins at Palmdale in northern LA County and connects to Burbank. It will be followed by the final link between Downtown Los Angeles and Anaheim.

ABC7 first reported the milestone and said: “[O]fficials noted that the Palmdale-Burbank section will be largely underground, with four separate tunnels accounting for roughly 30 of the 38 miles. The tunnels will run beneath the Acton community and through the Angeles National Forest. Travel time between Palmdale and Burbank is expected to be about 17 minutes on the high-speed train.”

The initial renderings of the first four Foster + Partners and Arup station terminals were released last month. As per ABC, work is already underway at 25 sites across t...

Foster + Partners and Arup release first designs of California High-Speed Rail stations

2024-06-28T15:46:00-04:00

Foster + Partners and Arup have announced the first four designs for the hotly anticipated California High-Speed Rail as part of a series of open house sessions currently being undertaken with key stakeholders across the state’s Central Valley region. The first set of designs will stand as models for all future nodes in the 500-mile linkage that connects San Francisco to Los Angeles/Orange County.

Construction is underway, and planners expect to have the first operable line readied between 2030 and 2033 after years of financing issues and a recent multibillion-dollar boost from the federal government.

Image: courtesy of Foster + Partners

Stefan Behling, the Head of Studio at Foster + Partners, said: “We are developing an architectural language for the four Central Valley stations, including soaring canopies that draw in fresh air and shield waiting passengers from harsh sunlight. The station design reflects the sustainable ethos of the wider project.”

Meg Cederoth, the Authority Di...

U.S. Department of Transportation awards $6.1 billion in funding for high-speed rail projects in the American West

2023-12-06T14:36:00-05:00

The U.S. Department of Transportation has announced $6.1 billion in funding for two high-speed rail projects in Nevada and California that will make history upon their respective completions at the end of the decade.

Both the $8 billion Brightline West plan connecting Southern California to Las Vegas and the California High-Speed Rail project between Los Angeles and San Francisco will receive a total of $3 billion and $3.07 billion each.

The funding will help propel the former towards a formal project announcement that is expected by Friday, according to Reuters. The latter will aid in the development of a pared-down version of the larger California project that has been plagued by funding challenges for several years.

Brightline’s chairman Wes Edens told Reuters the funding marks a “historic moment that will serve as a foundation for a new industry and a remarkable project that will serve a...

California's high-speed rail project receives $202 million in federal funding for critical juncture

2023-09-26T13:28:00-04:00

The California High-Speed Rail Authority has been awarded more than $200 million from the Biden Administration in what is one of the largest pieces of federal funding awarded to the project in its history. The $202 million grant was made by the U.S. Department of Transportation through the 2022 Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements (CRISI) program — part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law passed in 2021.

The latest funding reduces some of the $128 billion burden incurred by the project, which had been teetering on the edge before the state allocated enough funding to complete a critical 171-mile stretch in California’s Central Valley. The federal money will be put specifically towards six grade separations needed to create a clear path for motor vehicles in Kern County.

The High-Speed Rail Authority’s Northern California Director Boris Lipkin said recently that the project can only be completed faster than is currently projected with the help of increased federal support given its engineering complexities.

The state, which finally began the two-step procurement process for the “first-in-the-nation” 220 mph electrified high-speed trainsets last month, said its full realization is on track for 2033 in their latest Project Update Report from March of this year.

Foster + Partners and Arup to deliver first four California High-Speed Rail stations

2023-04-05T17:45:00-04:00

A joint venture of Foster + Partners and Arup will design the first four California High-Speed Rail stations in the state’s Central Valley region, the firms announced this week.

The plans they are developing for the transit organization will eventually deliver stations in Fresno, Kings/Tulare, Merced, and Bakersfield, serving the ambitious but still heavily scrutinized project’s initial 171-mile segment in an area that’s home to roughly 6.5 million people.

The joint venture announced its intentions of working with local interests during the two-stage Notice to Proceed (NTP) design and development process following the delivery of a "system-wide vision plan" for the proposed 500-mile project that will become America's first-ever high-speed railway.

Image courtesy Foster + Partners

Stefan Behling, Head of Studio for Foster + Partners, said: "After delivering our systemwide vision plan, we are now delighted to be working with Arup on detailed designs for the network’s first four station...

California’s High Speed Rail costs balloon again to $128 billion

2023-03-20T19:41:00-04:00

The price tag for the rail system has risen to $128 billion, according to a California High Speed Rail Authority project update report — a nearly 22% uptick from the previous figure of $105 billion from last year and a far cry from the $33 billion cost voters approved in 2008. The latest increases are due to “inflation/escalation, enhanced scope definition and greater contingency for risk,” per the report.

The cost imbalance has reportedly pushed back the Merced-to-Bakersefield segment’s targeted start of service from 2030 by up to three years, according to the CEO of the Rail Authority Brian P. Kelly.

Plans now are for at least the 119-mile segment that’s currently under construction in the Central Valley to be completed while the project waits on the tens of billions worth of outstanding federal grant funding that are still pending approval by the government.

The headache mirrors the troubles the HS2 line is having in England. In his report to the state, Kelly lamented the hamstrung funding, saying: “Megaprojects that last for decades need long-term, stable funding. Every country around the world that has built high-speed rail has dedicated billions of dollars over several decades to see it through. We don’t have one penny of state support for this project identified after 2030.”

California high-speed rail project secures critical $4.2B for Central Valley line

2022-07-06T13:41:00-04:00

After wrangling over the future of California’s high-speed rail, state lawmakers plan to release a critical batch of money to finish a bullet train in the Central Valley while also establishing an inspector general to audit the beleaguered project and authorizing billions of dollars in new money for rail plans across the state.

Following a sizable $97.5 billion state budget surplus, California lawmakers last week agreed to allocate $4.2 billion in bond funds needed to finish the ambitious high-speed rail project's 171-mile Central Valley portion which is expected to connect Bakersfield with Merced by 2030, according to current estimates.

All aboard for the next phase of Union Station reconstruction in LA

2022-06-02T09:00:00-04:00

The L.A. Metro system’s planned revitalization of Los Angeles Union Station is another step closer to reality following a vote last week that cleared the way for the $2.3 billion megaproject’s further advancement downtown.

Local outlets are reporting that the recent Board of Directors meeting resulted in an approval of a funding agreement between the Metro and California High-Speed Rail Authority which is expected to cover the first phase of development called Link Union Station. The initial project is itself the expanded version of an earlier scheme that would clear a bottleneck at one end of the tracks in addition to providing a new viaduct and railway span over the adjoining 101 Freeway.

Previously on Archinect: L.A.'s Union Station overhaul receives $400 million from California High Speed Rail

A total of $423.3 million will be allocated in the first phase, with another $297.8 million provided for preliminary work. Including the most recent influx of monies from the Rail Authority,...

California's high-speed rail project could be going in a new direction

2022-03-15T12:12:00-04:00

14 years after voters approved a nearly $10 billion bond to start building the rail system that would whisk riders from Los Angeles to San Francisco at speeds of more than 200 miles per hour, many California residents have long since lost track of what is being built where, and when or if it will ever be completed. “We’re teetering on the edge,” said Ashley Swearengin, a former mayor of Fresno who now leads the Central Valley Community Foundation. “We could get it right.”

The budget for the California high-speed rail project has now swelled to more than double its originally proposed cost of $40 billion from fourteen years ago. Construction on a 31-mile segment of the project has already begun near Fresno in the Central Valley.

The fight now is over whether or not to complete the segment, which would run through only three counties; or, as the state’s Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon is calling for, to focus on the “bookends” (San Fransico and Los Angeles) in a cost-saving venture that would maintain at least some portion of the rail’s original intent and purpose to unite the two most populous nodes.

“The project is by all objective measures in distress,” Rendon told the Times. “Connecting the two largest urban areas in the state is the best thing we can do from an environmental standpoint and an economic development standpoint. To link two cities in the Central Valley would doom the project.”

...

Nowhere fast: California's High-Speed Rail project is now twice the size of its originally proposed budget

2022-02-16T20:50:00-05:00

The cost to build California’s ambitious but long delayed high-speed rail line has once again risen, with rail officials now estimating it could take up to $105 billion to finish the line from San Francisco to Los Angeles. The project’s price tag has steadily risen since voters first approved nearly $10 billion in bond money for it in 2008, when the total cost was pegged at $40 billion.

The additional need for money stems from necessary sound barrier upgrades and repositioning of the train away from the Central Valley’s Cesar E. Chavez National Monument, according to project officials. The state is confident it can raise the necessary funds from the new federal infrastructure bill, which includes about $55 billion in allocations for transit grants over the next four years.

The 500-mile-long project is still severely lagging in the area of public funding but has nevertheless managed to acquire about 90% of the land parcels needed to complete the project, according to an updated 2022 budget plan released by the California High Speed Rail Authority. A portion of the project is also being funded by the state’s cap-and-trade program, which has been itself been under-resourced as a partial result of the reduction in travel caused by the coronavirus.

L.A.'s Union Station overhaul receives $400 million from California High Speed Rail

2019-09-13T19:00:00-04:00

The California High-Speed Rail Authority and the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) have reached a funding agreement that will bring $400 million in public funds to the Link Union Station project.

Link US, as the project is widely known, aims to retrofit Los Angeles's Union Station to facilitate the creation of "through-service" regional commuter rail—and in the future, High Speed Rail—routes connecting the station with locations north, south, and east of Los Angeles.

View of the proposed run-through track improvements proposed for the station. Image courtesy of Metro.

Currently, the station's track configuration leaves Union Station as the dead-end of several regional rail systems; When the improvements are completed in coming years, the station will be able to facilitate regional rail travel up and down the California coast while also cutting down on the amount of time trains spend idling at the station. Los Angeles Union Station currently connects r...

Unpacking the Hyperloop's lofty promises

2015-09-15T13:09:00-04:00

even given that the Hyperloop whitepaper was a rough sketch, the most important elements of the plan—its speed and price—have been vastly oversold. [...] But there’s a final reason to be skeptical, not just of the technical details of the Hyperloop, but of the supposedly utopian motives behind it: It may not even be Musk’s idea.

More on the much hyped (and griped) world of Hyperloop:

LA County residents protest planned high-speed rail

2015-06-09T20:21:00-04:00

A diverse alliance of communities — including Los Angeles County's third-largest city — is fighting California's long-planned bullet train route into the heart of the San Fernando Valley, saying it would bring irreparable harm... The coalition of communities is demanding that only routes that are predominantly underground should be considered. The growing resistance is coming in part from urban, working-class neighborhoods that are portraying the surface route as an environmental injustice.

In short, the bullet train faces opposition from basically every direction. One proposed route, which would include several above-ground stretches, worries residents of the town of San Fernando – because it would basically cleave the city in two, wiping out a significant chunk of the downtown. And attempts to pursue underground routes have faced criticism because of the possibility of harmful interactions with the state's complex of fault lines and already-precarious aquifers.

Meanwhile, in Downtown LA, Elon Musk's team continues to develop the Hyperloop...

Clinton's keynote, Boston's Olympics, and California's bullet train groundbreaking: Weekly News Round-Up for January 5, 2015

2015-01-12T15:33:00-05:00

Friday, January 9:

Boston wins U.S. Olympic Committee's bid for 2024 Games: Beating out Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington, DC, Boston's Olympic campaign estimates it can finance the Games with $4.5B in private funds and $5B or so in publicly-funded infrastructural projects.

Thursday, January 8:

Archinect Sessions is back with Episode 11, "Another year, Another Architecture", with the multi-talented Mitch McEwen: Mitch talks opportunity and collaboration in Detroit, and opines on architecture's shifting professional identity.
Five firms shortlisted for Mackintosh Library renovation after devastating fire: Glasgow School of Art will choose between Avanti Architects, John McAslan + Partners, LDN Architects LLP, Page \ Park Architects and Purcell by the end of March 2015.

Wednesday, January 7:

Driving in the US is coming to a standstill, and that's a good thing: The Federal Highway Administration released a report anticipating no-change in driving per capita, which means less money al...

California finally breaking ground on first high-speed rail segment

2015-01-06T13:02:00-05:00

California's bullet-train agency will officially start construction in Fresno this week on the first 29-mile segment of the system, a symbol of the significant progress the $68-billion project has made against persistent political and legal opposition. [...] But the milestone marked by Tuesday's groundbreaking ceremony also will serve as a reminder of the enormous financial, technical and political risks still faced by the Los Angeles-to-San Francisco project.

Hyperloop still far from frictionless reality

2014-01-17T14:09:00-05:00

What we do know: the Hyperloop is a fantastic, gee-whiz! prospect that, in an idealized and seamless application, would get between A and B faster than we ever imagined. But whether the Hyperloop actually can (or should) be built is still very much unclear. Ever since Elon Musk (PayPal, Tesla Motors, SpaceX) first proposed the Hyperloop last year, his "white paper" plan caused a flurry of excitement and criticism for a project that was still technically quite vague but so futurist (especially as an alternative to California High-Speed Rail's lumbering difficulties) that people loved shouting about it, whether for or against.

But since then, how has the Hyperloop project developed? Focus has shifted a bit away from Musk onto Hyperloop Transportation Technologies, Inc., an engineering startup backed by JumpStartFund, a Californian crowd-funding/sourcing platform. The founders of HTT, Patricia Galloway and Marco Villa, are now organizing efforts to actually build the thing (or at l...

Nations first high speed rail approved in California State Senate

2012-07-07T00:14:00-04:00

California has grabbed a golden opportunity to build the nation’s first high-speed rail system, create the backbone of a new, clean 21st century transportation system and support our future economic growth.

After a tough quarrels and special interest maneuvers, the State of California cleared the hurdles to lead the nation for a faster and more connected future. The high speed rail will have major impact on California's economy and its future urban developments. It could very well be the end of architecture's dry decade. Employers; gear up. Employees; apply.

The first segment of the line will run from Madera to Bakersfield. The final cost of the completed project from Los Angeles to San Francisco would be $68 billion.