This story was originally published by The Merced FOCUS.
California’s High Speed Rail Authority is proposing a new site for a Merced station in its quest to build a bullet train connecting Southern California with the Bay Area.
If built, the station would be on unincorporated land nearly four miles southeast of downtown Merced – a departure from the city’s longtime vision of having the station smack dab in its urban core as a catalyst for investment and revitalization.
Authority officials say moving the station site would shave $1 billion in construction costs, while also saving time getting it built.
Peter Whippy, the authority’s chief of external affairs, gave a presentation Monday evening to Merced City Council. He also gave the same presentation Tuesday to the Merced County Board of Supervisors.
The new site would be on county land just south of where Highway 99 crosses East Mission Avenue – an area Whippy said was identified through “productive discussions” between the authority and local officials.
The site would be an alternative to the downtown Merced site, which the authority is statutorily obligated to build under Senate Bill 198, which prioritizes building the train’s 171-mile initial operating segment from Bakersfield to Merced.
Under the authority’s current plans, the downtown Merced station would be built in an area bordered by 15th and 16th streets, and O and R streets.
But building the downtown Merced station will bring challenges, which Whippy said would include “several years of disruptions,” in terms of impacts to traffic, residents and businesses.
He also mentioned building downtown would require acquiring properties like the Merced Senior Community Center and McCombs Youth Center, along with businesses like El Bajio Market.
Those same obstacles wouldn’t exist with the southeast Merced site, Whippy said. He estimated the cost savings would be $1 billion – roughly a third of the price to build from Madera to Merced. Plus, it could be delivered on a faster timeline.
“The primary advantage here is certainty. It provides a clear, fundable path to bringing high speed rail to Merced,” he told the city council. “It avoids years of downtown construction while aligning with the areas the city and the county have already identified for future growth.”
The proposed southeast Merced station also comes four months after a controversial High Speed Rail report suggested the state could save billions of dollars by resequencing the planned Bakersfield-to-Merced segment. Some of the options in that report included removing Merced from the initial operating segment altogether, in order to more directly connect with Caltrain in the Bay Area.
More details needed, say some Merced leaders
Even if the authority were to move forward, in terms of switching gears from downtown to southeast Merced, it would still require approval from the state Legislature, as stipulated in state law.
After hearing Whippy’s presentation, members of the Merced City Council held a thorough debate, considering a range of options.
That included whether to support the proposed conceptual new station location outright or direct staff to provide an analysis of the proposed southeast station before giving the authority an answer.
Ultimately, the council voted 5-2 on a motion made by Councilmember Shane Smith to allow the city’s transportation subcommittee and staff to continue meeting with the authority and regional partners on a clearer station relocation proposal – with the goal of having that report return to council within 45 days.
That subcommittee includes Mayor Matthew Serratto and council members Smith and Mayor Pro Tem Sarah Boyle.
Serratto expressed a desire to signal support of the authority’s proposed concept, considering the authority has a Jan. 31 deadline to complete a draft of a business plan, which would be delivered to the Legislature by May. Plus, he believes the area where the southeast Merced station would be is “ripe for development.”
“I think it’s a better idea. It gets us here faster, it gets us here cheaper, and as a California taxpayer I think we’re all interested in the authority being as efficient as possible with its funds,” Serratto said.
While Smith said he didn’t support giving the authority a “firm” answer on the proposed southeast station just yet, he feels the council should at least signal a desire for the authority to further analyze the issue.
“We need to give the authority an indication of whether or not they should put resources into telling us what a station move means,” Smith said. “And I think it has to happen today.”
Smith acknowledged he “hit the roof” after learning Merced could be resequenced from the initial operating segment.
In his comments, Smith also referenced that the downtown station was envisioned to accommodate not only high speed rail, but the expansion of the Altamont Corridor Express and the Amtrak Gold Runner (formerly the San Joaquins trains).
“My original position was ‘there is no way in hell that I am going to sit by and let this station move from downtown. Because we are going to have three train lines coming to downtown, I’ve got multiple business people inside and outside Merced who’ve invested in the station coming downtown. Those are investment-backed decisions. The city has been holding back on development for over a decade… let’s get what we were promised.”
However, Smith said he no longer envisions the ACE and San Joaquins trains coming to the downtown station. He acknowledged the “energy” Merced would receive by building a southeast Merced station would be reduced, compared to what was planned for the downtown station.
“But (a southeast Merced station) might actually happen before I pass away,” Smith said. “And I want the people in this room to be able to benefit from high speed rail, if I could at all have that happen.”
“So, if we’re talking about a station in downtown solely for high speed rail, with no plan for it to continue to Sacramento in my lifetime, do I want to put the authority through the time and the expense…to build a downtown station, but also tear up my downtown like Fresno was for over a decade?”
Regardless, Smith said his “read of the tea leaves” is that the authority is not going to be able to build the downtown station. “So if we don’t signal support for partnering with them, to move the station to southeast Merced, my concern is we get nothing. And what do we get by hanging onto the dream of the downtown station? That’s not clear to me.”
District 1 Councilmember Darin DuPont, whose district includes southeast Merced, said he still has too many unanswered questions about the proposed site, and isn’t ready to move forward.
DuPont said the priority of the city and the authority for years has been to build the station downtown – even going back to when he was still a student in high school. DuPont said if that plan is shifting, the same vision and energy should be put into the southeast station.
“But the authority has to be able to come to the table and say ‘We recognize those impacts. We recognize what has happened over decades of planning. We recognize the urban decay that is starting to happen downtown. We recognize that. And as such, there will be due compensation,'” DuPont said.
Also, DuPont mentioned potential street connectivity issues, and wondered how annexation would fit into the picture.
“This is just scratching the surface of the discussion we need to have,” DuPont said. “We talk about critical infrastructure – water, sewer, streets, roads – none of which … reach this station location.”
“And we haven’t even had the discussion of ‘this isn’t within the city limits.’ What does that mean? Is the authority going to foot the bill to bring it into annexation and into the city limits. Or is that expected (of) the city? That’s a direct cost to our residents.”
Other members of the council, like District 3 Councilmember Mike Harris, agreed there are too many unanswered questions. “We want some details. We want to know, ‘what are we going to get out of this, what do we want out of this? Those things are not clear to us right now, but need to be made clear.”
Councilmembers Boyle and Fue Xiong cast the dissenting votes on the motion. Boyle, who sits on the transportation subcommittee, told The Merced FOCUS she didn’t want to stall the authority’s proposal.
“I know there are a lot of questions tonight, but I think by giving the green light to high speed rail that we support the relocation, it allows them to start doing the work to provide more of that information,” Boyle told her fellow council members.
Prior to casting his dissenting vote, Xiong had expressed a desire to see more community input be part of the process moving forward. “Provide information to the community so that they are able to get a holistic view of what’s going on,” Xiong said. “I am frustrated that this has come before council within the past six months, and we’re asked to make this decision without really involving community.”
Supervisors support continuing conversation
On Tuesday, Whippy shared largely the same Powerpoint presentation on the proposed southeast Merced station with the Board of Supervisors.
Although there wasn’t a formal vote, all members of the board agreed to support keeping the conversation ongoing with regard to the proposed southeast Merced station.
Several members of the board said the communications between the authority and Merced County had improved a great deal in recent months.
Board Chair Josh Pedrozo, who had previously criticized the authority for its lack of communication, thanked Whippy for the change of tone.
“This is something to where we now have a seat at the table or (are) continuing to have a seat at the table and I think it’s really important,” Pedrozo said.
Supervisor Scott Silveira echoed those sentiments, saying he’s spoken with officials from California High Speed Rail Authority “more in 45 days than I have in the last seven and a half years.”
Silveira said while he’s never been a fan of the high speed rail project and didn’t vote for it, he understands the conceptual utility of putting the station outside downtown Merced. He too is supportive of continuing the discussion.
“Ultimately, the business side of me says it’s not affordable to put it in downtown Merced, right? It’s going to be super expensive, it’s going to take a long time, there’s a lot of challenges with it. You move it south…a lot of those barriers go away which means you can deliver it faster, which means it’s going to be cheaper, and it’s obtainable.”
A costly project years away from completion
High Speed Rail authority leaders are keen on bringing down the costs of the project, particularly since the Trump administration has withheld $4 billion in federal funds slated for the project. The state recently withdrew its lawsuit challenging that decision.
Ian Choudri, California High Speed Rail CEO, is moving forward in seeking private investment to ultimately bring the project to fruition. He told The Fresno Bee he plans to ask the Legislature to change state law, which restricts rail authority spending to $500 million on work outside the Valley.
Critics of California High Speed Rail have frequently attacked the project as a runaway boondoggle that continues to burn billions of dollars, with little to show for it, despite over a decade of construction that’s nowhere near completion.
Ever since California voters approved the $9.9 billion bond measure in 2008 to build high-speed rail, the project has experienced no shortage of delays and lawsuits amid skyrocketing costs.
The Fresno Bee last year reported the initial 2008 projection of $33 billion to build the 520-mile route from San Francisco to Los Angeles has skyrocketed to $128 billion.