The California High-Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) has awarded the Spanish company SENER a $56 million contract to develop the engineering and environmental services for the Palmdale to Burbank section of the California High-Speed Line. The environmental documentation for this section is due to be completed by the end of 2017.
The contract calls for SENER to perform preliminary design for the 45-mile high-speed line section from Palmdale station in the north to the Burbank Airport station in the south. Engineering services will include conceptual design and analyzing various alternatives before selecting the preferred one. SENER will also prepare the tender bid documents for design and build (D&B) contracts. SENER is the prime consultant, subcontracting major American companies including HDR and Kleinfelder for engineering, Circlepoint for environment, MBI for outreach, and PlaceWorks for urban planning.
The Palmdale-Burbank will pass through urban, rural and natural areas. SENER will define the footprint for environmental impact analysis and the right-of-way to be acquired for the track alignment, stations and ancillary elements. Among the alternatives a log-bored tunnel will be analyzed, and the station areas will include an extensive urban planning exercise together with the Palmdale and Burbank City planners.
Following award of the contract, SENER USA CEO Francisco Fernandez said, “As experts in high-speed rail lines that run through major city centers, we’re going to apply all of our know-how to plan and design an efficient solution that will be respectful of the environment while being accessible and convenient for passengers. Given SENER’s expertise, we hope this contract will open a fruitful collaboration with the CHSRA.”
SENER has been present in California since 2008 with offices in San Francisco, and has been involved in other projects in the Golden State such as the master plan for the Los Angeles Union Station, which included gathering the HSR Station and redeveloping the area around the historical building.
In awarding both contracts, SENER says, the CHSRA recognizes its experience in high-speed rail and in urban integration of new rail lines. In addition to its participation in numerous AVE (Spanish High-Speed Rail) lines, such as the international connection between France and Spain, which included the Figueres-Perpignan high-speed line through a P3 (Public-Private-Partnership), SENER has developed the renewal of the railway hubs of Wrocław, Poznań and Łódź in Poland, to future HSR nodes.
Based on SENER's experience in high-speed, the company was called on to prepare a “High Speed Railway System Implementation Handbook“ for the International Union of Railways (UIC), which was presented in Philadelphia at the UIC's HighSpeed 2012 Congress, as well as the UIC “Passenger Railway Systems Upgrading Handbook”, published by the UIC in 2014.
California's high-speed line will be the first operating high-speed rail in the United States. It will connect the state’s various major cities—San Francisco, Sacramento, Los Angeles and San Diego—for a total distance of 800 miles and up to 24 stations. By 2029, San Francisco will be connected with the Los Angeles basin in less than three hours at speeds up to 250 mph.