Santa Clarita / Antelope Valley : Rail Line Forces Businesses to Move : Transportation: Construction of a 10-mile extension of the Metrolink route into Lancaster leads to the relocation along Sierra Highway.

Nine Sierra Highway businesses will be relocated to make way for commuter rail tracks being laid between Palmdale and Lancaster.

Metrolink spokesman Francisco Oaxaca said the decision to move all of the businesses adjacent to the tracks between avenues J and K was made last week.

Richard Stanger, Metrolink executive director, decided that relocation was the safest thing to do. It would also make installing the tracks easier. Initially, it was thought that only a few businesses would have to relocate or do minor remodeling.

Oaxaca said Metrolink is expecting most of the costs to be borne by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Metrolink commuter rail service was extended to the Antelope Valley in the wake of the Jan. 17 earthquake that crippled Southland freeways. The Metropolitan Transit Authority already owned track between Santa Clarita and Palmdale, but it did not have any line along the 10-mile stretch between Palmdale and Lancaster.

Under a temporary agreement, trains have been able to run to Lancaster on Southern Pacific track since service began Jan. 24, Oaxaca said.

Metrolink is building its track between Sierra Highway and the existing line within a 40-foot corridor that MTA purchased from Southern Pacific more than a year ago. The nine businesses that are being relocated are on the MTA-owned land.

Oaxaca said the $12 million in track work is about 60% complete and should be finished by the first week in April.

The businesses, at least one of which has already moved, were given notice that they have to be off the property by June 14, Oaxaca said. “The idea is to have them out as soon as possible.”

The businesses will be given money to help with relocation costs but amounts have not been determined, he said. “Results of the appraisals and cost estimates are not complete yet.”

Janet Jordan and Yolanda Higuera, co-owners of a hair salon called The Bushwackers, are being forced to relocate after 17 years at their Sierra Highway location.

They are keeping an optimistic view about their pending move. “What are you going to do?” Jordan asked. “You have to make the best of it.”

Higuera added: “We have to go. It isn’t like we can fight them. We just don’t want to get shafted.”