More than 700 letters, emails and web comments were received during the public comment period, said Mark McLoughlin, the authority's acting director of environmental planning, in a memo to the authority board.

At a legislative hearing this week, authority chairman Dan Richard said property owners along the Merced-Fresno route are being formally notified that their land would be affected.

The Merced-Fresno stretch would be one of the first parts of what planners envision as a 520-mile system of high-speed trains linking San Francisco and Los Angeles by way of the San Joaquin Valley. Last summer's draft included three possible options for the section -- one that generally followed the Union Pacific Railroad freight tracks and Highway 99, one along the BNSF Railway freight tracks now shared by Amtrak's San Joaquin passenger trains, and a third that wove between the two freight corridors.

One major decision based on public comments was the selection in December of a "hybrid" route that follows the UP/Highway 99 corridor between Merced and Chowchilla, then curves eastward to follow the BNSF tracks between Madera and the San Joaquin River north of Fresno. The line then returns to the UP corridor for its run through Fresno.

In the Chowchilla area, where high-speed tracks from the Bay Area would eventually tie into the Valley line, several options remain under study. A final decision won't happen there until the rail authority decides how and where the Bay Area line will connect to the Merced-Fresno section.

The board is scheduled to formally approve the Merced-Fresno report at a two-day meeting in Fresno on May 2-3.