ADMINISTRATIVE REPORT
MEETING DATE: April 9, 2024 AGENDA CATEGORY: New Business TO: Multimodal Transportation and Safety Ad-hoc Committee FROM: Gregg Strakaluse, Public Works Director
DATE: April 2, 2024
SUBJECT: Update from the California High Speed Rail Authority
Update from the California High Speed Rail Authority
RECOMMENDATION:
Staff recommends receiving and filing the report and continued coordination amongst the agencies
BACKGROUND:
The California High Speed Rail Authority (Authority) has recently presented to this committee in October 24, 2023, sharing the commitment to working cooperatively on station site planning, site access, transportation mobility, and consideration of land use and redevelopment potential. The earlier presentation had identified the location of the future station and very preliminary concepts.
Since October 2023 the Authority has made significant progress. The Authority has under contract Foster+Partners / Arup (F+P Arup JV) is for design services for the four Central Valley stations on the Merced to Bakersfield operating segment. The F+P Arup JV completed pre -design and concept design work for the 4 stations and submitted a package of deliverables to the Authority in November 2023. Since then, the Authority completed technical review of the submittals, value analysis and value engineering as well as stakeholder consultation and has incorporated a range of technical feedback into a single concept layout for each station that the design team will advance through schematic design. Schematic design is the first stage of Activity 3, Design Services; this stage is scheduled for completion in Fall 2024.
As initial station design is being completed, the Authority has been working with the City of Bakersfield and the California Department of Transportation to collect and model traffic conditions out to the year 2046 and conceptually arrive at transportation infrastructure alternatives to and from the station that safely serve all modes of transportation, while considering the highest and best use for redevelopment.
Much of the focus and coordination has been on State Route 204, a Caltrans facility between Union Avenue and State Route 99.
The presentation before the committee will focus on the station concepts, with cross sections of the look and feel, and the site plan design layout concepts. The Authority will share egress/ingress flow of the station with integration to the City transportation network.
Authority staff and their consultants will be sharing the anticipated timeline for next steps in the project and the planned community outreach in the coming months.
FISCAL IMPACT:
There is no fiscal impact for providing the presentation on the High-Speed Rail station concepts.
COUNCIL GOAL:
Reliable Infrastructure
ATTACHMENTS:
Presentation