![]() ![]() “We made a conscious decision to have two front doors,” said Henry Perea, a former member of the Fresno City Council who was appointed in 2019 to the board of the California High-Speed Rail Authority. It would also serve to provide equal access not just from downtown, but from lower-income neighborhoods directly to the west. The curvaceous verticality would be visible from afar, eliminating any doubt that high-speed rail had arrived in the state’s fifth-largest city. ![]() Alongside it to the right is the city’s historic train depot, which opened in 1889 and closed in 1971. The old depot would undergo a much-needed restoration but where it hugs the ground with masonry walls, the newcomer would arch up and over the tracks, a tube-like form more than 50 feet high at concourse level.Ī conceptual diagram showing a possible layout for downtown Fresno’s high-speed rail station. In Fresno, for instance, the new station would include the block where the city’s historic 1889 depot is located. ![]() The symbolic aspirations play out in terms of how the stations are to be integrated into their surroundings. Flat solar panels might cloak the canopies where sections meet above the track, part of an effort to have each station generate more energy than it consumes. The design focus so far is on physical elements that can be replicated at each station, such as perforated metal canopies with a pleated system that could extend accordion-like and shelter commuters from the Central Valley’s intense summer heat. “These are the most important kinds of projects for us to work on.”Įarly design concepts for the Fresno high-speed rail station, intended to open between 20. “You have to have a long horizon,” said Peter Sokoloff of Foster + Partners, the architecture firm that is teamed with engineering firm Arup and was selected in April to design the quartet. But, for the architects and structural engineers starting to craft their designs for the four stations - in Merced, Fresno, Bakersfield and near Hanford - extended timelines are the norm with a project of this scale. That debut is at least seven years away, and progress will likely be dogged by more of the political second-guessing that has clouded high-speed rail since voters gave their blessing in 2008. ![]()
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