CHSRA Earns Diversity, Social Change Advancement Award
Written by Marybeth Luczak, Executive Editor
Construction workers on the Wasco Viaduct. (CHSRA Photograph)
The California High-Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) has received an award for excellence in advancing diversity and social change from the American Planning Association’s (APA) California–Northern Section.
The recognition is for the San Jose to Merced Project Section, Environmental Justice Community Improvement Planning and Engagement Process, CHSRA reported on April 19.
In planning for the approximately 90-mile San Jose-Merced line that was environmentally cleared last spring, CHSRA said it “collaborated with environmental justice communities to identify improvements that will help offset project effects.” Through more than 200 community engagement events, including 58 meetings focused on enhancement planning, 25 improvements were identified across the eight affected communities. Among them: park and street safety improvements, school/community recreational facilities, supporting school bus routing, pedestrian/bike connections and overpasses, school retrofits, insulation to address noise impacts, and re-establishing a library focused on civil rights at an African American community center.
“This work reflects a multi-year process of building relationships with the communities that the system travels through, with an emphasis on environmental justice and partnership,” CHSRA Northern California Regional Director Boris Lipkin said. “We’re honored that the American Planning Association recognizes those efforts as a best practice, and we look forward to continuing these relationships as we bring high-speed rail to Northern California.”
CHSRA received the APA California–Northern Section’s 2023 Excellence Award for Advancing Diversity and Social Change in Honor of Paul Davidoff, an urban planner who is said to have pioneered inclusionary zoning. The award is one of 22 bestowed by the association this year for “the most outstanding efforts in planning” throughout Northern California.
In related developments, CHSRA reported that it has begun work to extend the 119 miles under construction to 171 miles of future electrified high-speed rail from Merced to Bakersfield. There are more than 30 active construction sites in California’s Central Valley, and CHSRA said it has environmentally cleared 422 miles of the program from the Bay Area to the Los Angeles Basin. CHSRA’s last month issued its 2023 Project Update Report.
