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Efforts to settle a lawsuit filed against the California High-Speed Rail Authority failed nine days after they started, according to the attorney representing Peninsula cities in the suit.

“Suffice it to say the mediation was unsuccessful and we’re back on the litigation track,” Stuart Flashman told the Voice’s sister paper, the Almanac, on Wednesday, July 25. He estimated the case will take at least a year now to resolve “one way or the other.”

Menlo Park, Atherton and Palo Alto sued the authority over aspects of the environmental impact report for the high-speed-rail project, including projected ridership figures and the impact of various design scenarios on their cities.

Even though the lawsuit wends its way slowly through the courts, the actual project got a jump start on July 6 when state lawmakers approved funding for the first phase of the $68 billion project.

This story will be updated as more information becomes available.

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3 Comments

  1. Van Ark is probably off building something for somebody who actually wants it. On the Weekly thread for this no mention has been made that if CAHSR had agreed with what the plaintiffs want, then all the Fed money would be missed while the program EIR is revised to exclude four tracks. EVEN though the PROJECT EIR for the Peninsula will be limited to the blended system. All of these machinations are why the Governor was considering CEQA streamlining for HSR. But oh-we can’t do that, it would make tree huggers into hypocrits. We can’t build anything in California these days, because we will never all agree on what to build, and those who don’t agree can always find a way to litigate instead of negotiate. Some day folks younger than me will wake up with no more new freeways, no more new runways, and no HSR either. I hope by then Mr. Scott’s transporter actually works so that people who need or want to move about can just say “beam me up”.

  2. Four tracks is way to go since it elliminates delays due to freight, switching and breakdowns of old system. HSR should be direct route to meet Prop 1 A 2 be 40 min requirement consistently, safely and reliably. This is how we do HSR in Japan for many decades. We move millions of happy commuters from city to city quickly. We have separate track for freights and energy supply movements.

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