CurbedSF is reporting that the denizens of San Francisco's South Beach neighborhood are damn mad at the California High Speed Rail Authority and, as typical, they're not going to take it anymore.
The High Speed Rail Authority is currently in the process of completing a project level Environmental Impact Report for the San Jose to San Francisco segment of the high speed rail alignment that looks at alternatives to the fancy new Transbay Terminal for the final stop of the high speed rail line. Normally, this would be no big as the California Environmental Quality Act requires project sponsors to look at a full range of alternatives to their proposed projects so they can get a real feel for which one might kill more bunnies, drive more old ladies from their homes, so on and so forth. Here, however, it would appear that the High Speed Rail Authority is expressing just a little too much enthusiasm for a project alternative that would terminate the high speed rail line at Beale Street, a skosh south and to the side of the Transbay Terminal.
Couple this zeal with comments made last year by cranky old former Authority Chairperson, Quentin Kopp, pooh-poohing the Transbay Terminal, hysteria over reports that the Transbay terminal would never be able to accommodate the number of planned trains, and recent public presentations made by the Transbay Joint Powers Authority (arch-nemesis to the High Speed Rail Authority), showing the Beale Street alternative toppling condo towers and destroying lifestyles left and right and, Houston, we've got an uh-oh! NIMBY Krakatoa!
For their part, South Beach residents have unfurled a petition demanding that this Beale Street rigmarole stop post haste. If you're a resident of South Beach, feel free to sign. Once they've gathered enough signatures, they will nail the petition to Quentin Kopp's front door or similar.