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Yesterday, the California High-Speed Rail Authority’s (CHSRA) board authorized a plan to enter partnerships with local agencies and transit providers to develop infrastructure projects in the Altamont Pass Corridor, and collaborate on linking a high-speed rail system between Sacramento and Merced.

The partnership pacts will guide future cooperation between agencies to enable all parties to have a role in planning high-speed train service, according to CHSRA.

"We want to work cooperatively with both Sacramento and the San Joaquin Rail Commission to ensure that we achieve the best, most efficient and most cost-effective results as the high-speed train system is developed in the future," said CHSRA Chairman Quentin Kopp in a prepared statement.

The authority plans to develop an intermodal facility in Sacramento that would serve as the future home of the city’s high-speed train service. The project’s first phase — which calls for relocating tracks — is expected to start soon.

The board also approved two “shovel-ready” projects that members believe will qualify for federal stimulus dollars. The projects will be added to the state's official request for a portion of the high-speed and intercity rail funding that will be appropriated sometime after the application deadline of Aug. 1.

The projects are the Los Angeles-to-Anaheim and San Francisco-to-San Jose corridors, which are slated for construction by the stimulus act’s 2012 deadline; and right-of-way acquisition in the Merced-to-Bakersfield corridor, which includes a planned maintenance facility.

CHSRA is responsible for building an 800-mile high-speed rail system in the state. In November 2008, voters approved Proposition 1A, which calls for establishing a 220 mph system.