By Jesse Dungan
San Jose Mercury News (California)
CALIFORNIA - A coalition of Peninsula cities and organizations on Monday sued the California High-Speed Rail Authority in another bid to derail its $43 billion bullet train project.
The project has been controversial in some mid-Peninsula cities, where residents and officials worry the bullet trains will be noisy, divide neighborhoods by running atop elevated tracks, and force the seizure of dozens of homes along sections of the Caltrain corridor.
Palo Alto, Menlo Park and Atherton, along with three environmental groups, two citizens groups and a San Mateo resident, filed the lawsuit in Sacramento County Superior Court.
The suit alleges that the rail authority's environmental assessment doesn't adequately describe the Los Angeles-to-San Francisco project, fails to fully explore its negative impacts, and gives short shrift to alternatives, such as running the trains over the Altamont Pass and up the East Bay instead of over Pacheco Pass and up the Peninsula. ..........(more)
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