The Loma Prietan
December 2002/January 2003
High-Speed Rail Plans Roll Ahead
by Patrick Moore
With a plan to use the world's fastest trains at speeds greater than 200 mph, San Francisco and Los Angeles would be only 2.5 hours apart. The California High-Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) is considering a number of routes from San Jose to the Central Valley. One route involves cutting through Henry Coe State Park. While Rod Diridon, the current chairman of the CHSRA board, has privately committed to not making that the preferred route, more environmental input is need about this critical Silicon Valley to Central Valley transition.
In San Francisco, the planning work continues on what will be the northern terminus of California's HSR System. Draft Environmental Impact Report work for the improved Transbay Terminal is now in the public comment phase until December 6. This project extends Caltrain from the current 4th and King terminus under 2nd Street to the proposed rebuilt Transbay Terminal in the Financial District. This excellent project would create 4700 new housing units with excellent transit connections and should be completed in 2008. This project will bring together HSR, Caltrain, AC Transit, BART, SF Muni, Greyhound, and Golden Gate Transit in one central location. This location will help California's HSR System offer city center to city center connectivity. This necessary convenience enables the HSR system to be competitive and financially viable. Maria Ayerdi, Transportation Policy Advisor to Mayor Willie Brown, is to be commended for her work on this project.
Other Caltrain work that is in progress is the CTX project. This $127 million project is adding passing tracks and control equipment that enables riders to get from San Jose to San Francisco in about the same amount of time (50 minutes) as BART will take to get from Millbrae to San Francisco (44 minutes). This project benefits HSR because the four-track system that Caltrain is starting to work on will be needed by the HSR trains to bypass the Caltrain local trains. Four-tracking has the additional benefit of requiring grade separation--resulting in less train noise for Caltrain neighbors.
Another project that is laying the groundwork for the future is the progress being made on Caltrain electrification. Caltrain is planning on electrifying with a 25kv 60Hz system which will be the electrical system needed by the HSR trains. John McLemore engineered the reprogramming of Bay Area Metropolitan Transportation Commission money to help keep this critical project on track. He is to be commended in helping shield Caltrain from VTA's poor financial planning. John McLemore, Maria Ayerdi, Arthur Lloyd, Sophie Maxwell, and Steve Schmidt voted to keep this project moving. Michael Nevin and Ken Yeager, while not present for the Caltrain JPB budget vote on July 11, 2002, helped push the project forward. Manny Valerio from Sunnyvale was the lone dissenter. Additional jeers to the VTA board for not living up to their 1996 Measure B and 2000 Measure A commitments to Caltrain.
For more information on the High-Speed Rail projection, contact the California High Speed Rail Authority at 916/324-1541 or www.cahighspeedrail.ca.gov.