Merced officials and residents urge High‑Speed Rail Authority to keep Merced in Phase 1

At the California High‑Speed Rail Authority board meeting Oct. 9, Merced officials, business leaders and residents urged the board to keep Merced in Phase 1 of the system’s construction, saying the city has planned and invested on the expectation the downtown station would be built early.

Mayor Matt Salvato said Merced is “deep in advanced planning stages” for a downtown station and described local outreach and investor interest. “We’re committed to being great partners,” Salvato said, adding that Merced’s population grew about 16.6% in the last five years and that a downtown station would support transit‑oriented growth.

Several Merced officials and residents said they felt blindsided by recent planning documents that suggested resequencing Merced out of the first operating segment. Frank Quintero, deputy city manager for Merced, told the board that the proposed resequencing “has not been rescinded” but said he was hopeful the project remains in Phase 1 because of a cap‑and‑trade funding commitment that board speakers described as $1 billion per year through 2045.

Longtime community member and commercial agent Ernie Camacho said Merced’s community is “very, very underserved” and warned that moving the station to a later phase would derail recent local momentum around UC Merced and planned downtown investment. Business owner Robert Delina said local organizations and developers had “invested millions” based on the expectation of a downtown station and called resequencing “a nonstarter.” Realtor Patty Vasquez said shifting the station would discourage the next generation from staying and working in Merced.

Students and recent graduates at the meeting said the station would increase college access. Parvinder Upal, a recent college graduate and Merced County resident, described the current multi‑vehicle, multi‑bus routes students must use and said high‑speed rail would “fundamentally transform” access to campuses across the state.

Several speakers asked the authority to improve communications. Merced City Council member Shane Smith said the city and authority must rebuild trust after conflicting messages about the project’s sequencing and said he looked forward to ongoing meetings between city staff and Authority leadership.

Why it matters: Speakers said a Phase 1 Merced station is tied to private investment, local economic development and student access to universities, and they asked the authority to honor prior commitments while staff and board examine sequencing.

At the end of the meeting CEO Chaudhry told the board he would ask engineering and planning staff to “take a deeper dive” on options to accelerate construction toward Merced and share findings with Merced leaders.

Provenance: topicintro — excerpt of Mayor Matt Salvato’s public comment (transcript time 263.18–271.30): “My name's Matt Salvato. I'm the mayor of the city of Merced... we're deep in advanced planning stages.”; topfinish — CEO remark promising follow‑up (transcript time 5588.615–5590.215): “I will be asking my engineering and planning team to take a deeper dive and look at that.”