The releases start a one-month formal scoping period to gather input on additional facilities in Colton and Barstow needed for construction and operation.

As planned, the Los Angeles - Anaheim section will travel along the BNSF-owned rail corridor between Los Angeles and Fullerton, which serves BNSF’s Hobart and Commerce intermodal facilities. The corridor runs through an urban environment, with other existing rail operators - Amtrak, Metrolink and BNSF - in the area.

To accommodate the future high-speed rail service, and to do so in a manner that protects the ability of the current operators to make full use of the corridor during high-speed rail construction and operation, a portion of BNSF’s rail freight services will need to be relocated away from the Los Angeles - Fullerton corridor.

This will be accomplished with the environmental clearance and provision of new freight facilities in San Bernardino county, consisting of a new intermodal facility in Colton and staging tracks in Lenwood, an unincorporated area of San Bernardino county near Barstow.

The California high-speed project, launched in 2012, was originally designed to connect San Francisco and Sacramento with Los Angeles and San Diego. However, in his first state of the state address in February 2019, the governor of California, Mr Gavin Newsom, announced that the project would be scaled back due to spiralling costs and poor oversight, and only the section currently under construction in the Central Valley will be completed.

However, the development of plans to connect this section to San Francisco and Sacramento in the north and Los Angeles and San Diego in the south is still underway.

In conjunction with the public review period for the document, CHSRA has invited the public to participate by attending virtual public scoping meetings. The meetings will provide an opportunity for the public to hear about the revised NOP/NOI and provide comment, which will be reviewed and responded to as required by law.

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