Hanford Insider with guest Toni Tinoco: Unveiling the Central Valley High Speed Rail Project

On this episode of the Hanford Insider we have a special interview with Tony Tenokoa of the California High Speed Rail Authority. Rob will give an update to the busy community calendar and Eric will get you caught up on all of the high school football action as the regular season winds down.

Welcome to this episode of the Hanford Insider. I'm your host, rob Bentley. This week's weather is going to be very nice, with temperatures in the 80s In city council news. At the last council meeting, council members voted to postpone a decision regarding the proposed permit fees for use of athletic fields at the city's sports complexes. Historically, the city of Hanford has not imposed a field permit fee to use facilities. Field fees are standard practice in neighboring cities such as Corcoran, visalia and Fresno. The city spends over $360,000 annually to maintain the sports complexes. The next meeting is scheduled for Tuesday evening at 7 in the council chambers in the civic auditorium. There are several items on the agenda that include a Proclamation of Autism Awareness Month, a new agreement with a high school district and HPD student resource officers that will cover overtime at special events such as dances, proms and athletic contests. They'll also be looking at awarding a contract for the new Heroes Park Professional Architectural and Engineering Design Services to the Melton Design Group. The city has also received an anonymous donation of approximately $20,000 worth of commercial quality Christmas decorations for the winter wonderland. Let's check our community calendar. The fourth annual Hanford Pumpkin Patch on Flint Avenue between Dowdy and Highway 43 is open At this week's Thursday Night Marketplace they'll be celebrating National New Friends Day. Entertainment will be provided by the band August. The Carnegie Museum of Kings County presents the Hotalous Exhibition of Portuguese History each Friday, saturday and Sunday from 1 to 5. They are also currently selling tickets to their December 9 fundraiser to restore the original 1905 wood flooring in the old Carnegie Library building. For more information, visit Carnegie Museum of Kings County dot. Org. Thursday, october 19th, tipsy Canvas in Hanford will be holding an Oogie Boogie paint party. Supplies and drinks are included. Rsvp is there is limited seating. For more information, call Tierney at 559-589-3969. This Friday, october 20th, hanford Post-Acute will be having their trunk retreat from 4 to 7 at 107 West Lacey Boulevard, the Main Street. Hanford Witches Night Out event will be held this Friday night. Tickets for the event are sold out but the after party is free. The Right to Life Walk will be held on Saturday, october 21st, at 8 am. Walkers will meet at the Calvary Chapel Church at Doughty and Terrace and go to the center on Lacey Boulevard. Funds raised helps provide accurate information and compassionate services to those facing difficult decisions regarding pregnancy and related issues. For more information, visit the Crossroads Pregnancy Center website at crossroadscpccom. The Sierra Pacific High School Band and Collegard is having a pumpkin sale on Saturday and Sunday next weekend from 10 am to 4 pm at the district office located next to Der Wienersnitzel. The Hanford FFA Parents' Club is having their 17th annual Harvest Dinner fundraiser on Saturday, october 21st at the district farm. There will be a dinner and open bar with live and silent auctions. This is $100. Contact the FFA Parents' Club for tickets Coming up next week. On Friday, october 27th, there will be a Hocus Pocus Movie Night in the Hanford Civic Center Park. On Saturday, october 28th, there will be a Halloween Bash from 5 to 11 at the Hanford Bestial. The courthouse Haunted Maze will be open. There will be an adult costume party, carousel rides, other vendors and a bar. For those 21 years old and up. The event is free. Good drinks and other attractions are available at a cost. Next week we'll have a complete rundown of Halloween activities. I'm grabbing events as I see them on social media. If you have an event coming up that you would like to help get the word out about, let's work together. Send your information to HanfordInsider at gmailcom. Catching you up on Bandtober, which is the craziest month of the year for school marching bands. Congratulations to the CR Pacific High School Band for placing third in the 4A Division. At the Driller Classic in Bakersfield on October 7th. The Hanford West Huskies placed third in the 5A Division. Congratulations to the Hanford High School Band and the CR Pacific High School Band on their competitions. At the Sierra Cup Classic of Fresno State this past Saturday the Bull Putt Band finished in fifth place in the 2A competition. The Golden Bear Band finished in sixth place in the 3A competition. Earlier in the day, at the Fowler Junior High Band Review, my band, the Liberty Middle School Patriots, placed fourth in Division I and sixth overall out of all 25 participating bands. Next up for local bands is the Visalia Band Invitational this Saturday coming up at Redwood High School, pioneer Middle School, liberty Middle School, hanford High School, hanford West High School and LeMore will all be participating. Well, as we all know, the California High Speed Rail Project is moving forward through Kings County with the first phase of construction that will eventually connect Southern California with Northern California. One of the most noticeable projects that is really starting to impact local traffic is the Highway 198 Viaduct. I've asked Tony Tinoco, who is the Central Valley Deputy Regional Director, to come on the show to update us on the status of the project. Welcome to the show, tony.

Thank you, Rob.

Hey, tony, before we focus on just the Hanford area, can you give us a brief update on where we are today with the project environmental clearances and how much is under construction in the Central Valley?

Absolutely. There's a lot of activity happening all throughout the Central Valley. We actually have 119 miles under active construction right now. So everything from Madera County through Kings County to Larry and into the city of Wasco down in Kern County you have a lot of the civil construction happening, all of those big viaduct structures, the guideway that's being done. So a lot of different moving pieces happening all throughout the Central Valley that we're very excited about and a lot of momentum that's happening. Aside from just the active construction, which is part of our critical path on this project, we've been doing a lot of environmental clearances all throughout the state. So the ultimate phase one of high speed rail would connect San Francisco and the Bay Area through the Central Valley and then going towards Southern California, towards Los Angeles and Anaheim. That's a 500 mile stretch of the state that we need to environmentally clear. So far, out of that 500, we have 422 miles already environmentally cleared through our NEPA, our federal environmental process, and through our state process, CEQA. So that's been a huge hurdle to jump over but we're very, very happy with the amount of progress that's been made. We should be wrapping up our environmental clearances with two final documents down south by the end of next year, if not beginning of 2025. So a lot to get done, but we're very, very close to that finish line in terms of environmental clearance.

So what's happening in Kings County then? I know we have a lot of construction sites. What's been completed so far?

Yeah, so in Kings County a lot of progress has been made in that segment as well. You know we needed to get a number of utilities relocated before we can get our contractor in there start putting shovels to the ground, and we're at a point now where a lot of these overpasses that we're building all throughout the corridor are starting to wrap up. So you have structures like Idaho, alcorn, dover, structures like that that create some better east-west mobility for traffic. Those have been completed. Just this year we completed seven structures, three of those in Kings County. So we're starting to move. As soon as we can open up those structures, that means our contractor can get started on another site. So quite a bit of activity has been done in Kings County and we expect some more sites to open up in the coming months.

So let's talk about Hanford specifically. I know driving through Fresno I've seen over Highway 99 at Cedar and over the San Joaquin Valley. Some of these other areas have really nice viaducts that you call them overpasses. Will there be any special design features of the 198 overpass that? Can you tell us what commuters might expect over the coming months as they negotiate around the traffic patterns of 198?

Sure, there's a lot of activity happening around the city of Hanford. One site that's pretty significant our largest structure actually for the Central Valley segment is our Hanford Viaduct. So that would take us over State Route 198. They are in active construction right now. That viaduct is actually 6,300 feet long. It'll take our high speed trains over the San Joaquin Valley Railroad, over Lacey Boulevard and then, of course, state Route 198. So right now our crews are working on forming what's called the superstructure of the viaduct. So they're placing a lot of those really large precast girders from our nearby precast facility site that we have there. So they're working very quickly on that site. But one thing that's pretty significant about the Hanford Viaduct is it's not just a structure that goes over a highway facility or some other area that we need to fly over. It's actually connected to our future King's Tulare High Speed Rail Station. So it's a much larger structure, part of our stations. You will have four tracks at each site, two that would be passing tracks. So this structure kind of takes different forms and it's pretty neat to see how it's come along so far. But it's interesting to segue into our King's Tulare station where we in the last couple of months. We've brought on some designers who are going to progress the design for each of our stations. So we have four Central Valley stations. We have one located in the city of Merced. We also have one in downtown Fresno. As we go south we get into the King's Tulare station, which is where you see that Hanford Viaduct going up, and then further south we have a station plan for the city of Bakersfield. So a lot of conversations that are happening right now. Really great engagement with King's County, city of Hanford, public Works and their planning department staff have been amazing. We're going to continue that conversation as we progress design and we want to make sure that we capture the city and the county's input. Along with you have some really great transit agencies, like King's County Association of Governments, who've been doing some great work in terms of transportation, trying to capture all of that information as we get this design going.

Yeah, that's pretty fantastic, I know. Recently I read that the city of Hanford was awarded a grant to start looking into ways to connect the people that will be at the high speed rail station to downtown Hanford and other areas in Hanford as people will be coming through, and so one of the things that really is kind of a new revelation to me. As I was preparing for this interview, I was looking more into the connection of the Cross Valley Railroad that runs east and west through Hanford and I know it's kind of hard to imagine passenger traffic on those rails. Of course that wouldn't be those rails necessarily, but the master plan actually calls for connectivity between the communities all the way from Porterville to Kalinga. Can you elaborate on that a little bit?

Sure, it's very exciting to hear the announcement of this grant for the City of Hanford. We've been working with the City Planning Department and Public Works Department very closely, so it's really great to see the state's investment in something like this to continue, you know, transit-oriented development. We want to see that. Of course, connecting into high-speed rail is going to be a very significant part of this process. But, yes, we're going to continue those conversations as they begin to plan out the process of that. We know that. You know this grant is going to help them guide some land use planning along Lacey Boulevard and then towards the King's Tulare station, which is really important. Another part of our station planning, and something that this grant will help, is to enhance what's already there in terms of transportation, and that's where you get. You know, the Cross Valley corridor, tied into this Cross Valley corridor, has been an ongoing concept for some time. They're at a point now where they're looking at the current infrastructure, bus systems. What kind of connections are needed for communities between Porterville and Huron? How do we connect, you know, residents in LeMore to other places throughout the Valley, but then also keeping in mind and making sure that we're connecting to the King's Tulare high-speed rail station. So it's a great opportunity to figure out, you know, what is the ridership, what are the needs of these communities and how can we connect them with what we have in place now, and then look into the future of operations and how we can enhance those things and make them better for everyone.

Tony, I'd like to thank you for coming on the show to update us on the project. This has been so informative and we'll have to have you back on as the high-speed rail project continues. What is the website that people can visit to find out more about the high-speed rail project?

Absolutely, and thank you for having me on as well. I mean, this is a historic project. High-speed rail hasn't been done in this magnitude anywhere else in the country, so it's really nice to be able to see it right in our backyard. So it's something that's going to take some time, but we're very, very encouraged by the community support and a vision to bring high-speed rail to California. For more information on our project, you know what's going on. For each individual construction site, we have our state website, hsrcagov. We also have a construction website, which is pretty neat. You get to see some drone footage, some real-time photos of our construction workers out at the sites, and that's our buildhsrcom website.

Thank you so much, Tony.

Thank you, rob, and now it's time for Hanford Insider Sports with Eric Bentley.

After the Hanford Insider by-week, let's get you caught up on all of the Hanford football action. Hanford West took on the Reedley Pirates back on October 7th and took a tough loss in a high-scoring game. Final score 60-42. This last Friday night they traveled to Kermin and were outscored in that game, 41-6. This Friday the Huskies will travel to Emanuel to take on the four and four Eagles. The Sierra Pacific Golden Bears' perfect season ended on October 7th with a tough loss to Emanuel. On Saturday they hosted Reedley and lost a tough one 27-7. This Friday the Golden Bears will be on the road as they travel to Exeter. And finally, the Hanford Bullpups dominated Tulare Union back on October 7th. Final score of that game 57-34. At their homecoming game on Friday night they blew out Tulare Western 50-6. The Bullpups moved to 7-1 on the season and on Friday they will travel back to Tulare to take on a four and four Mission Oak squad. The Bullpups are headed for a showdown with LeMore for the milk can on October 27th at Neighbor Field. As always, if you are a fan or a coach that wants your team featured, send us an email HanfordInsider at gmailcom. I'm Eric Bentley and this has been your Hanford Insider Sports Report.

That's all the time we have for today's show. If you'd like to join the Hanford Insider email list, send a subscribed request to HanfordInsider at gmailcom. Help me get the word out about the show by liking and sharing on social media or telling a friend For more information about the show. You can find this podcast on Facebook, instagram threads and YouTube at Hanford Insider. If you have a show idea, be sure to email me at HanfordInsider at gmailcom. Thanks for listening in. Have a great week.