The Loma Prietan
February 2002
Laying the Future for High Speed Rail
by Patrick Moore, Sierra Club Loma Prieta Chapter Transportation Committee
The November issue of the Loma Prietan talked about why High Speed Rail (HSR) is important to us as Sierra Club members. This article touches on what needs to happen in the immediate future along the Peninsula to start making California High Speed Rail a reality in our lifetime.
High Speed Rail competes most effectively with airplane travel when the downtown-to-downtown trip time is less than 3.5 hours. Although some European HSR routes can compete with longer trip-times, it is when the trip time is shorter than 3.5 hours that air travel experiences a net decrease in demand. This makes it vital to ensure that the Caltrain corridor is improved to the extent that it is possible for an express train to travel down the Peninsula in less than 40 minutes (during any time of day) in order for the San Francisco to Los Angeles trip times to be economically viable.
This trip time requires these four elements:
Right-of-way preservation
Last year Caltrain hired a railroad consulting group, Systra, which confirmed that Caltrain needs to be a four-track system. Four tracks allow express trains operating
simultaneously in both directions to pass
local trains. This is vital not just for HSR, but also for Caltrain's normal operations.
The good news is that Caltrain is about to start the first phase of the "Baby Bullet" project. This project will involve quadruple- tracking selected "easy" sections. Unfortunately, the 11.3 miles that would be triple- and quadrupled-tracked for the first two phases of this project are not necessarily the most optimal for express train scheduling. Nevertheless, Caltrain estimates that this $164 million improvement, which includes additional trains, will enable San Jose to San Francisco trip times of less than an hour. (Thanks to State Senator Jackie Speier for authoring the Baby Bullet project.)
Electrification
Caltrain is planning electrification of the system in 2006. Electric engines are both quieter and quicker at accelerating and decelerating than the current diesel engines. Since it is virtually certain that HSR would be electrical, electrifying the Peninsula is a HSR requirement. The system would be electrified with overhead catenary wires similar to VTA's light-rail, not BART's thirty-year-old technology, which has dangerous ground-level electrification. Electric trains are also cleaner than diesel-engine trains.
Grade separation
For safety reasons, trains must travel slower when crossing roads at grade. This allows motorists and pedestrians time to clear the tracks in front of an oncoming train. Grade separation along extended sections of tracks allows for increased speeds and greater safety. An additional benefit is that use of warning bells and train horns would no longer be necessary, helping to further reduce the noise impact on the surrounding community.
Stop talking about BART
How could BART be a bad thing for HSR in general and Caltrain specifically? The conflict involves two problems that extending BART would impose. First, the Caltrain corridor is narrow and in many cases it could be difficult for Caltrain to squeeze in the four tracks needed to support HSR, let alone the additional BART tracks.
Second, BART's customized technology is very expensive and would necessarily divert funds that could be better spent on enhancing Caltrain in preparation for HSR. The estimated $700 million in lost interest alone that bringing BART to San Jose will cost is nearly equal the cost of electrifying Caltrain, quadruple-tracking the 11.3 miles mentioned, and having trains run from Union City across the Dumbarton Bridge up to San Francisco and down to San Jose.
As a further comparison, the 700-mile proposed
HSR system in California will cost about $39 million per mile to build,
and will serve over 500,000 people per day spread throughout the state.
BART to San Jose will cost over $238 million per mile and will serve at
best 80,000 people per day in a small portion of the state. Due to the
congested nature of the Peninsula, extending BART up the Peninsula would
be at an even greater cost per mile.
What You Can Do
Talk to your local city council members and make sure they are onboard with grade separations and a four-track right-of-way.
Also, Caltrain will be holding public meetings to talk about how the system should be improved in the future. They want your attendance at these meetings.
Contact Patrick Moore at patmoore@ieee.org or 650/969-2966, or phone Caltrain at 650/508-6200 to find out more.