Why An HSR Design Competition Is An Excellent Idea

One tried and true practice for designing projects with a great deal of public interest - and public controversy - is to hold a design competition. Many important public memorials have been designed this way, including the Berlin Holocaust Memorial and the World Trade Center Memorial in lower Manhattan.

Such competitions serve several purposes. They open the often contentious process of designing important yet potentially divisive projects to public scrutiny, enabling the public to participate in the selection process (therefore making them more invested in the project itself, instead of as bombthrowers from the sidelines). They also help people see what is possible and what is desirable in a particular project by having architects imagine new and interesting ways to design the project. Instead of an abstract concept or a feared design, like the "Berlin Wall" on the Peninsula, people can see something that interests them, inspires them, and gets them to see the project not as a threat but as a possibility for welcome change, an opportunity to do something new, interesting, useful, but that meets their own goals and desires.

It is in that vein that calls for an HSR design contest on the Peninsula are such a welcome development:

Joseph Bellomo has a simple proposal for the California High-Speed Rail Authority: Leave the design of the proposed high-speed rail to the world's brightest designers.

Bellomo, a Palo Alto architect whose projects emphasize modular construction, energy efficiency and sustainable design, laments that the design of the controversial 800-mile rail line has so far been dominated by teams of engineers, each working on a separate segment of the line.

So while other local architects, urban planners and concerned residents are busy lobbying the state for underground tunnels, Bellomo advocates a different approach for selecting the design of the proposed line -- an international design competition.

Last month, Bellomo sent a letter to the rail authority, the state agency charged with building the $45 billion rail line, proposing a two-tiered international competition in which architects and designers from around the world would send in proposed designs for the entire line. The proposals would be narrowed to three finalists whose ideas would be further developed.

"The only way to get good design, holistic design, is through competition," Bellomo said.

I'm not as convinced that we need a design competition for the entire route, but a design competition for some elements of the project, including the Peninsula Corridor, makes quite a lot of sense. It would help make the CHSRA seem like less of an outside invader and more of a facilitator of modern designs for a modern urban landscape, allowing residents and architects and planners to come together to present innovative designs appropriate to the location.

This is especially valuable on the Peninsula because the objections to HSR there are almost entirely aesthetic (though they're rooted in deeper issues of economic opportunity and a desire of some to protect what they have at the expense of others). The desire for a tunnel is driven by the conviction that an elevated structure designed by CHSRA will merely resemble a giant freeway. As we've shown before, above-grade HSR tracks can be built elegantly, blending well with their surrounding urban environment. A design competition can show ways to build HSR that meet both the operational criteria of the CHSRA and the other criteria of local HSR supporters. Such a design competition will never silence the hardcore HSR deniers, but that isn't the purpose here.

Bellomo isn't just calling for a design competition in the abstract. He is also offering his own idea, which you can find at his site (scroll down about halfway to find the HSR section). His proposal is for what he's calling a "solar corridor", an elevated track with a steel enclosure that holds photovoltaic solar panels. His Peninsula design leaves two Caltrain tracks at-grade, allowing for its electrification, and a either a single or double track in the elevated viaduct. In some ways this resembles Rafael's La Vitrine concept from back in March, though with important differences.

I can't say I'm sold on the Bellomo concept. And it's unclear whether the visual impact of the "ribs" would be embraced by the locals. Also left unstated is what happens to the at-grade tracks at existing grade crossings. But I am glad to see him giving some thought to how to implement HSR along the Peninsula.

His idea of an HSR design competition for selected segments of the route is a very wise idea. It won't solve everything, but it is worth embracing.

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This site will remain as an archive, but comments will be closed as of tonight, 10PM Pacific. Unless of course something goes wrong in the transfer.

Unsafe At Any Speed

There are at least four families in Palo Alto who will be having a less joyous Thanksgiving this year - four families touched by the tragedy of suicide. This year, four teenagers have committed suicide by walking in front of Caltrain locomotives on the at-grade section of the tracks near Gunn High School.

Now, a group of Palo Alto parents are pushing a petition to demand Caltrain slow down to a 5 mph crawl between West Meadow and Charleston Road in Palo Alto:

We ask Caltrain to implement a schedule, effective immediately, of slowing all trains from West Meadow to Charleston to a speed of 5 MPH in order to prevent further suicides on the tracks in this area.

In preparing this request our research has turned up a number of facts that support this measure.


1. They will not go elsewhere. Research has shown that individuals bent on suicide at a hot spot will not simply move further down the tracks. See links.
2. If you restrict access to the ‘means’ you will reduce the number of incidents. It has been proven that even a small impediment at a suicide hot spot reduces the number of incidents at that spot. This is why we are also watching the tracks. We believe that this vigilance, in combination with slower trains will reduce the number of incidents and perhaps stop them.
3. In the case of a suicide hot spot the threshold for the individuals who may be considering suicide is lowered. This is especially true for teens . This means the existence of the hot spot and access to it is increasing the number of incidents.
4. Although teen suicide has many possible causes and there are many preventive measures we may take as a community, slowing the trains is a short term solution.

Although a train at 5mph may be no less deadly, we believe it will be less attractive while giving us the chance to clear the tracks and giving the driver time to stop.

Currently it takes the commuter trains less than a second to clear the crossing at 60mph. At 5mph this would increase to approximately 4 seconds, a negligible delay for drivers when compared with a human life.

Slower trains will reduce the allure of this area, allow time for track watchers to clear the tracks, and give Caltrain engineers the chance to stop the train if necessary. Most importantly, slower trains now will give us time as a community to work together in launching a multi factorial effort to curb teen depression and suicide over the long term.

Caltrain takes these suicides, and any other safety hazard along the tracks, extremely seriously. And it's hard to fault parents who want their kids to experience safe conditions.

That being said, you might as well stop the trains entirely if you're going to insist they crawl through at 5 mph. I don't know if this is a good short-term solution or not, but it is clearly not a long-term solution for either the parents, Gunn students, or Caltrain.

It's difficult for transit infrastructure to be designed in a way that can stop someone truly determined to kill themselves from doing so, as the Golden Gate Bridge and BART have discovered. That being said, this rash of suicides reminds us of the inherently dangerous nature of grade crossings where fast, heavy trains are operating. (Light rails and streetcars have potential issues - but then so does any other vehicle operated on the roads.)

Back in June this blog asked why the death toll of at-grade rail crossings was being excluded from the conversation about high speed rail on the Peninsula. The fact is that Caltrain on the Peninsula as it stands right now - at-grade through a densely populated urban area - is unsafe at any speed. A 5 mph slow order is no lasting solution to the problem of how to operate a modern passenger railroad safely through such a landscape.

Some may accuse me of "politicizing" the issue. But it has already been "politicized," long ago, by those who argue that their own property values and their own personal, idiosyncratic vision of urban aesthetics and what their community should "feel" like trumps the safety needs of the general population, including Gunn students.

"Politics" is the process by which individuals and groups make collective decisions, and how they weigh competing needs and desires. Right now in Palo Alto, there is a politics that prioritizes preserving the status quo over providing for safe, affordable, reliable, clean, and economically stimulating passenger rail. Whether the tracks go over or under the grade crossings, it is clear that the status quo for Caltrain and Palo Alto no longer works.

The community needs to come together to find a long-term solution to make the railroad as safe as possible, balancing that against the need for that railroad to continue operating at improved efficiency. They need to recognize that while there is no way to provide for perfect safety, some ideas, like grade separations, are such obvious parts of the solution that anyone who argues against them out of a desire to preserve their own pocketbook or their own sense of aesthetics should be, at best, questioned relentlessly about their priorities.

Sustainable Menlo Park Speaker Series

By Bianca

On November 18, the non-profit group Sustainable Menlo Park hosted a presentation on the latest developments on high speed rail. Sustainable Menlo Park is officially "neutral" on the subject of High Speed Rail, but decided to host the event due to local interest in the subject. On the podium were Bruce Fukuji of Caltrain, John Litzinger of HNTB, and Greg Gleichman of AECOM. Turnout at the event was low; there was not a lot of publicity beforehand, and there were perhaps 30 people in attendance. Much of the information had been presented in prior events, but here are a few notes:

Bruce Fukuji made a presentation on Context Sensitive Solutions for the Peninsula. He began, however, by reminding everyone in the room of the big picture: the looming challenge of sustainability. California has led the nation on climate change targets, but meeting future emissions targets is going to be a challenge. He noted that 42% of carbon emissions in California are transportation-related. Even with improvements in fuel efficiency, an expanding population will result in an increase in vehicle miles traveled. Population growth will more than cancel out improvements in combustion-engine technology. It will be impossible to reach our emissions targets simply by relying on hybrids and increases in fuel efficiency. He used the following graph to illustrate the relationship between urban density and gasoline consumption:





Fukuji then went on to discuss the development of Context Sensitive Solutions as a reaction to the DAD model of planning (Design, Announce, Defend). He also explained the concept of "value engineering" and how there is a need to give the functional needs and the context needs equal weight.

The next speaker was John Litzinger from HNTB. He gave a detailed overview of the EIR process, and noted that the goal is to have a fully approved and final EIR at the end of 2011.
During the Q&A session, Litzinger commented that the engineering studies around crossing San Francisquito Creek may likely determine that a bored tunnel is the preferred alignment for engineering reasons; crossing the creek and the approach to El Palo Alto at grade or in a shallow trench is problematic. This may explain why CHSRA representatives at recent meetings have seemed open to tunneling through much of Menlo Park and Palo Alto; if CHSRA engineers conclude that the best way to cross San Francisquito is in a deep tunnel, it may be that Menlo Park and Palo Alto may get some of their tunnel without having to fight for it. I should clarify that this was not in any way an official announcement, just the musings of an engineer. The vast majority of questions from the audience related to tunnels. In some cases, audience members didn't really have questions, they just wanted to state their preference for a tunnel. None of them had any suggestions for how to pay for it.

The last question of the night had to do with subsidies. The questioner stated his premise that all High Speed Rail systems around the world are dependent on subsidies. Litzinger responded by distinguishing the costs of the building the initial infrastructure from the costs of maintenance and expansion. High Speed Rail, like every other form of transportation infrastructure, depends upon government subsidy for construction. After an adoption period to build ridership, all High Speed Rail systems cover their maintenance and expansion costs. Litzinger then noted that High Speed Rail is the opposite of freeways; both need subsidies for construction, but afterwards, High Speed Rail covers its own maintenance and expansion costs, whereas freeways don't charge anything to users and rely entirely on taxpayers forever.

Don't Let Arnold Schwarzenegger Divide and Conquer

One of the consistent points this blog has made since we launched in March 2008 is that HSR is part of an overall effort to revive passenger rail in California. HSR isn't a substitute for other forms of local rail - in some places, like the Peninsula and Southern California, it enhances local rail by enabling more and faster service on commuter lines such as Caltrain and Metrolink. Prop 1A recognized the need for a linked system by offering about $1 billion for non-HSR passenger rail in the state. And this site cheered on ballot initiatives for other local passenger rail projects, including Measure R in LA County and the authorization of funds for SMART in Sonoma-Marin.

Unfortunately, these are challenging times for sustainable mass transit advocates. The recession has been accompanied by a revival of Hooverism at both the state and federal levels. In 2009 California eliminated state spending on local mass transit, and has put on hold the issuance of bonds from Prop 1B in 2006, which includes money to improve existing passenger rail systems. The federal government has been a bit more friendly to transit, but the authorization of a new transportation bill that would provide stable funding for passenger rail of all kinds has been stalled all year and may not be approved until sometime in 2010 (if we're lucky).

This is an environment where mass transit advocates, especially passenger rail advocates, need to stick together and advocate for more funding for rail as a whole, with specific funding to local, regional, intercity, and HSR projects as appropriate. We need to advocate for a holistic plan, instead of doing what the Hooverites want us to do, which is fight over the scraps.

That coalitional approach is not made any easier by the actions of Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. The LA Times got around to reporting the controversy over the state's singular focus on HSR funds in its federal stimulus application, to the exclusion of other passenger rail:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger quietly spiked an effort last month to win $1.1 billion in federal high-speed rail stimulus funds for 29 projects to improve the safety, speed and capacity of heavily traveled commuter corridors through Southern California.

Instead, he ordered state officials to seek money for only one project -- the proposed bullet train between San Francisco and San Diego.

The governor's decision was intended to increase the state's chances of receiving high-speed rail money, officials said. California is competing with more than 40 applicants from 23 other states.

Richard Tolmach, one of the state's main HSR deniers, has been peddling this story for weeks and apparently finally got someone to bite. He wants to frame this as further evidence that HSR is bad, should be opposed, and is a threat to other passenger rail in the state. And yet, there is logic in what Arnold did. With over $50 billion in stimulus applications submitted this month, and only $8 billion to go around, California was going to have to pick and choose among a number of worthy proposals. There was no way around it. And even if you disagree with the outcome, it cannot be denied that it does make sense for the state to have focused on the high-profile HSR project, which after all has received glowing praise from the very federal officials who are tasked with distributing these funds.

Even if all $1.1 billion in non-HSR funds were applied for, it is extremely unlikely that much of it would have ever been awarded by the feds. Federal officials have sold this as a high speed rail stimulus, so there would have been risk if they awarded that money to non-HSR projects like those along the Pacific Surfliner corridor.

There is also a legitimate argument to be made that even with the above in mind, since HSR won't be complete for another decade, there was benefit to applying to provide more immediate improvements to existing passenger rail systems. I get that, and appreciate that thinking. There's no doubt that California's existing intercity rail corridors need more investment.

But the decision to not pursue that investment in this particular round of funding is by no means a death knell for those efforts. The article explains some other options for providing funding for Metrolink Positive Train Control, one of the projects Arnold chose not to include in the stimulus application:

However, Richard Katz, a former assemblyman who sits on the Metrolink, high-speed rail and Metropolitan Transportation Authority boards, was more optimistic that conventional rail projects, such as positive train control, would not be jeopardized by the governor's concentration on high-speed rail.

For example, Katz said, Metrolink, which serves six counties, needs roughly $200 million to $210 million to install positive train control by 2012.

About $70 million has been requested from other federal sources, and efforts are underway to try to redirect $97 million from state transportation bonds that are earmarked to rebuild the Colton railroad crossing.

If positive train control cannot get enough federal or state funding, Katz said he believes the MTA would lend Metrolink the money.

As to the more ambitious - and necessary - projects to include more grade separations and new tracks along the Surfliner corridor, their future funding sources are less obvious. But that should not mean backers ought to turn their fire on the CHSRA, which did what any other agency would do and argue they should get funded first.

This is a crucial moment for passenger rail advocates in California. Either we can let Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has never been a friend to rail, divide us and weaken passenger rail - or we can unite and push hard for renewed funding for these other worthy projects. Here are four ways we can get started:

1. One obvious place to begin is the federal transportation bill. There is no reason it should remain stalled in Congress. If Democrats lose Senate seats in 2010, as is projected right now, then it is not possible to push through a new transportation bill that would properly fund passenger rail. All hands will need to be on deck for that one.



2. Advocates should also join the push for $4 billion in HSR funding in the FY 2010 budget. This would create a precedent for ongoing HSR funding at that level, creating less pressure on California government to try and get their HSR money from other rail projects.



3. Passenger rail activists also need to get active in the push for a second federal stimulus. Although Obama Administration officials have dismissed such talk, it is only continuing to grow as unemployment continues to rise. Infrastructure is always a popular target of stimulus spending, and given how many states submitted passenger rail stimulus applications, it's clear there is an appetite out there for more money than what the feds have offered so far.



4. We also need to fight back against the steady defunding of mass transit, including passenger rail, at the state level. All forms of passenger rail - streetcars, light rail, commuter rail, Amtrak California, and high speed rail - are necessary to meet California's 21st century challenges. Given our state's financial crisis, it may seem like a tall order to find new sources of funding for these projects. But it is imperative that we do so.

Folks like Richard Tolmach are happy to exploit the lack of proper funding to attack high speed rail and ensure that passenger rail in California remains a moderately successful but niche element of our state's transportation network. And given that HSR is necessary to Caltrain's survival, Tolmach's approach would jeopardize even the existing services we have.

We should not play his game. Nor should we play Arnold Schwarzenegger's game. Passenger rail advocates need to avoid the temptation to fall out over modal preferences, and instead unite to grow the pie, rather than fight over who gets to eat the ever-smaller slices.

Does Russell Peterson Know What He's Doing?

In response to a recent Wired Magazine article that declared "NIMBYs won't be able to stop California HSR," one of the more prominent Peninsula NIMBYs, Russell Peterson, decided to not go gently into that dark night. He wrote an email in reply to the article that was itself posted on the Wired site this week. It's a remarkable piece of cognitive dissonance - Peterson is suing to demand that Union Pacific's rights to the Caltrain ROW be recognized as giving UPRR a veto, while at the same time calling for a tunnel to be built on the corridor. The problem with a tunnel, of course, is that it makes it difficult - not impossible, but difficult - for UPRR to continue freight service on the route.

To be clear, the lawsuit (.pdf) is the least intrusive legal action one can take. It is called “declaratory relief” and simply asks for a legal interpretation of the existing contractual rights of Union Pacific. Union Pacific did sell the right of way to the Peninsula joint powers board, but it retained permanent rights. One of those rights, exclusive development of intercity rail, and the exclusion of high-speed rail development on a portion of its right of way makes the situation unclear. And Union Pacific has written letters (.pdf), in May 2008, to the California High-Speed Rail [Authority] stating it will not allow high-speed rail on certain sections of the right of way it owns outright. To imply otherwise is a factual error and a misleading statement in the article.

The problem is that Peterson is overstating his case. Caltrain has argued that the 1991 purchase agreement gives it, and not UPRR, ultimate power, that Peterson is reading the agreement wrong, that there's no conflict and that they have a "cordial relationship" with UPRR. Clem took a look at this over at his blog in August. The key section in the agreement appears to be section 8.3:

8.3.(c) In the event that Owner demonstrates a reasonably certain need to commence construction on all or substantially all the length of the Joint Facilities (including User's Cahill/Lick Line) of a transportation system that is a significant change in the method of delivery of Commuter Service which would be incompatible with Freight Service on the Joint Facilities (other than User's Cahill/Lick Line), Owner may, at its sole cost and expense, file no sooner than nine months prior to the commencement of such construction for permission from the ICC to abandon the Freight Service over the portion of the Join Facilities (excluding User's Cahill/Lick Line) upon which the construction is to occur. User shall not object to or oppose such a filing; however, it shall be allowed to participate in the abandonment proceedings.

Of course, Caltrain and CHSRA have shown no desire to kick UPRR off the corridor. Much to the contrary - they are already in discussions with each other about accommodating existing freight rail service.

And that is going to be difficult to do with a tunnel. The tunnel would have to be high enough to allow overhead wires to give clearance room for double-stacked container cars, and would have to have adequate ventilation for diesel locomotives, since it is extremely unlikely that UPRR will use electric power for this route alone.

That would undermine Peterson's stated support for a tunnel:

Likewise, Caltrain rail experts told a civic audience on Oct. 3 that a tunnel is not even twice as expensive as current plans for elevated rail. Given that environmental and other required mitigation costs add significant expense to the elevated option, the tunneling proposal offers interesting development opportunities along the route. Besides these opportunities it seems odd to promote 21st-century high-speed rail and then proceed to plan a 1950s- and 1960s-style elevated structure. The not-so-subtle inference that opponents are NIMBY is simplistic. Boston’s “Big Dig” buried a major freeway, the Loma Prieta earthquake took out the Cypress Freeway (now a park with renewed neighborhoods, etc.) and the Embarcadero Freeway (which led to renewal of the Ferry Building and surrounding area), and Berkeley buried its rail (and only paid a 10 percent premium vs. above grade). All of these projects brought both transportation and civic value to their respective areas. Why community involvement/engagement is so readily marginalized is puzzling to me with such clear examples of revitalized communities.

This is basically an incoherent grab bag of claims. First, the elevated structure would not be "1950s- and 1960s-style," there are 21st century methods of building elevated structures in ways that fit well with the surrounding community. San Carlos hasn't exactly been destroyed by its elevated segment. The Big Dig isn't exactly an argument in his favor, and neither the Mandela Parkway nor the Embarcadero replacement projects were tunnels. Finally, Berkeley paid the extra costs of what was mostly a cut-and-cover project by taxing itself to do so. Unless Peterson believes that the mid-Peninsula cities plan to tax themselves to pay for a tunnel, then he'll be looking to the sale of air rights - a sale that won't be possible if UPRR preserves its freight service rights on the existing at-grade ROW.

Peterson's letter continues in this scattershot vein:

The implication of the story is that this project is coming, like it or not. This may be a correct conclusion based on politics and political connections but Zach makes no arguments for it. Eventually he admits opponents rightfully have concerns, then dismisses those concerns. Caltrain recently issued a letter describing the ill effects of raising a source of noise (train horns) 14 feet in the air and how it is working to correct the problem. Well, elevating the whole train to 15 feet and increasing the speed would create more noise — thus Caltrain even agrees. The environmental impact report is deficient — has anyone explored the idea that people expected environmental laws be followed when they voted “for” this project?

Of course, "this project is coming" is based on the fact that the people of California voted for it and expect the HSR project to be built, and not held up or have its costs driven up by NIMBYism. Peterson claims NIMBYs just have "concerns" and want "oversight," but they've never really shown any support for the concept of high speed rail. Instead they prefer to undermine HSR's effectiveness or even its very existence to suit their own needs, believing that their priorities are more important than those of the state as a whole.

As to train noise, this is a complex matter. But one aspect of it is quite simple: on an elevated structure, there will be no more horns, period. Further studies will demonstrate the difference between those horns and the noise made by passing electric trains, which would not be running at full speed along the Peninsula anyway.

If Peterson's goal was to show the world that Peninsula NIMBYs are a principled group of people just trying to help HSR get better, he has completely failed. Instead he has revealed Peninsula NIMBYism for what it truly is: an incoherent collection of arguments held together by a desire to place their own personal vision of urban aesthetics above the vision, the needs, and the stated preferences of millions of their fellow Californians.

Rampant HSR NIMBYism In Palo Alto Council Race

Once upon a time, Palo Alto was seen as a leader in sustainable planning in California. City leaders expressed and acted upon support for bicycle- and pedestrian-friendly communities, and backed mass transportation solutions from Caltrain to high speed rail (which the current council backed when they endorses Proposition 1A last year).

Unfortunately, the vocal NIMBYs in that community have begun to jeopardize the city's position of leadership in support of sustainable and forward-looking policies. Led by those who continue to sow the misinformation about HSR acting as some kind of "Berlin Wall," Palo Alto is in danger of opposing high speed rail outright, and in the process fatally undermining Caltrain - and therefore, fatally undermining the city's own stated commitments to mass transit.

This November, Palo Alto voters will fill five seats on the city's nine-member council. Unsurprisingly, high speed rail is a major issue in the race, as evidenced by this report of a recent candidates' forum:

"I was opposed to high-speed rail in November, and I voted no on the bond," candidate Leon Leong said, referring to state Proposition 1A, which launched the rail plans with $10 billion in funding. "I believe the city needs to budget funds for litigation, for advocacy in Sacramento, hiring lobbyists, as well as in the federal government, to either get the route changed or get it stopped in San Jose."

The comment drew a burst of cheers from an audience that had been asked to hold its applause. For most of the two-hour forum at the Palo Alto Art Center, sponsored by a group of Palo Alto neighborhood associations, the crowd obeyed. Not when it came to high-speed rail....

Leong and a few others said the city should be pushing back harder against the California High Speed Rail Authority, the board charged with implementing the plans.

Tim Gray, who lives along the tracks, said, "I've got my back against the rail and I'm going to keep on fighting. I'm like a mother bear with her cubs."

What exactly does Leong want the city to do? Find some grounds for another frivolous lawsuit? People like Leong and Gray haven't accepted the fact that high speed rail is going to happen, and think that it is best to waste everyone's time - and the city's money - battling it instead of determining the best way to live with it.

Gray's position is even more amusing. He's not protecting "his cubs" - he thinks he is protecting his property values, as if government existed for that purpose alone and that everyone else in Palo Alto should sacrifice their need for affordable, sustainable transportation in order to pad his assets. Ironically, HSR would boost his property values - unless there's a huge pool of buyers out there eagerly awaiting the chance to live next to a railroad with loud horns and spewing diesel fumes at all hours of the day.

John Hackmann pulled out an oversized white poster board on which he had written in magic marker, "No to rail wall." Like Leong, he said he voted against the bond measure, as did candidate Chris Gaither.

If Palo Alto residents believe that the ability to write on a poster board is qualification to serve on city council, well, OK...

Karen Holman said an underground high-speed rail line might not be much better, even if the city could afford it.

"Opposing the above-ground option is a no-brainer," she said. But an underground rail line comes with its own problems, she said, including possible eminent domain takings due to construction and conflicts with freight trains that now use the Caltrain tracks.

Holman touted her experience on the city's planning and transportation commission, saying it prepared her to pick apart environmental reports. The report approved by the high-speed rail authority last year is "not a serious document," she said.

Holman is actually raising a good point here - a tunnel is no panacea for Palo Alto. It would likely mean greater eminent domain takings (whereas an above-grade solution will produce hardly any at all in Palo Alto), and it would indeed cause conflicts with freight trains that could hinder or block the city's ability to replace the at-grade railroad with development to help pay for the tunnel.

On the other hand, Holman shows her lack of familiarity with environmental and mass transit planning when she calls the statewide program EIR "not a serious document." For someone who touts her experience on the planning and transportation committee, this is a serious charge to make - and it is utterly ridiculous. The judge in Atherton v. CHSRA found that the EIR conformed to CEQA requirements, with the exception of the matter of the UPRR ROW between San José and Gilroy. For a massive statewide project EIR, that's actually a pretty good performance in court.

One candidate took some credit for publicizing the rail plan's potential pitfalls before most others, including the city council, saw any cause for concern. Nancy Shepherd pointed out that she hosted a heavily attended meeting for her house in the Southgate neighborhood, a meeting some say sparked Palo Alto's activist movement on the issue.

"I would like to see the city council play a much larger role, perhaps even hiring our own engineer" to evaluate a key upcoming environmental document, she said. That way, she said, the city would not be "hoodwinked, like we were last November when we were voting on this."

It's a shame Shepherd prefers to repeat the dishonest "hoodwinked" claim. That implies an intent to deceive which wasn't there; she should retract the accusation. Palo Alto voters had plenty of resources at their disposal, including copious amounts of local TV and print news coverage, to explain to them the details of the HSR project when they voted en masse to approve Prop 1A last November.

And that raises the real issue at stake in the Palo Alto election. It isn't a battle over HSR. It's really a battle over who will be allowed to benefit from city policies for the next several decades. It is about who gets to enjoy economic security and prosperity - and who is going to be denied those benefits.

What the anti-HSR candidates are saying to Palo Alto is that the only people who should benefit from city council policy are those who already own homes near the Caltrain corridor. Everyone else, whether homeowner or renter, young or old, student or townie, rich or poor, comes second to those privileged few, who are mobilizing to seize control of the city council.

As Michael Scanlon pointed out at the Menlo Park Town Hall and as Bob Doty reinforced at the Palo Alto teach-in, without high speed rail bringing the money to electrify Caltrain, Caltrain is not likely to survive.

It sure doesn't sound like any of these candidates are even aware of that fact. If they are, it doesn't seem as if they much care. By prioritizing their own property values over the needs of everyone else in Palo Alto, they're happy to consign other city residents to dependence on ever-rising oil prices and automobile congestion, as well as condemning the city to continue to suffer from the deadly toll of at-grade tracks.

Palo Alto, like California, stands at a crossroads. It has two basic choices. The first is what the anti-HSR candidates propose: preservation of the 20th century model of urban living, dependent on the automobile. It is an obsolete model, one directly responsible for the present economic crisis and guaranteed to produce economic stagnation and immiseration as fewer and fewer people can make ends meet in a place dependent on oil and lacking sustainable methods to move people around.

The second choice is what other visionaries, including some of the council candidates, desire for Palo Alto. It is the realization of the city's environmental and smart planning projects begun in recent decades but now in serious jeopardy at this election. It is a choice that would produce a sustainable city, much less dependent on oil, with a vibrant downtown, a community where the railroad is a permeable yet safe feature instead of a deadly and divisive barrier. It is a city where economic opportunity is available to the many and not to the few.

I have no idea how this will turn out. NIMBYs are notoriously successful at drawing attention and making themselves look more numerous than they actually are. Palo Alto DID vote for Prop 1A in large numbers, and the recent efforts to provide sensible HSR planning have been very well-attended by residents eager to find a way to make HSR work for Palo Alto. Perhaps those who want a better future for Palo Alto will outnumber those who want to abandon that future so that a small group of people can enjoy the benefits of the present for a couple more years.

We'll know the answer in November.

A Closer Look at San José to Merced

Last night the CHSRA held a public meeting in San José to discuss the plans for what may well be the most challenging segment of the entire SF-Anaheim route: the San José to Merced segment. The battles north of here, on the Peninsula, have gotten a lot of attention, but that segment is much more straightforward - the route has already been chosen (Caltrain ROW) and it's now just a matter of how you implement it.

Further south, the situation is much more complex, additionally so because it is this segment for which the judge ruled the EIR was inadequate in Atherton v. CHSRA, specifically the matter of using UPRR ROW between San José Diridon and Gilroy.

As a result, some of the key route decisions are still very much up in the air. And here too you have NIMBYs fighting what seem to be the most commonsense solutions, including the Gardner neighborhood (which, I should correct, did actually exist before the railroad - the neighborhood was subdivided in the 1880s and again in the 1900s, whereas the SP line was built during the Depression in the mid-1930s). Down in south Santa Clara County Gilroy residents have voiced concerns about using the existing rail alignment, especially based on the factually incorrect statement that trains would run at 220mph through central Gilroy. And there is the matter of a protected grassland near Los Banos that the HSR trains are currently planned to use.

The CHSRA produced a useful document showing the alignment options along this segment, focusing on the three toughest parts: how you get from Diridon Station to either the UPRR ROW or Highway 101; how you run trains through Morgan Hill/Gilroy, and the Los Banos section.

One of our commenters, Peter, attended the San José meeting last night and had these comments, shared in the comments to yesterday's post and reproduced here:

The presenters were brutally honest regarding expected noise levels, eminent domain, frequency of trains, etc.

People definitely preferred the relatively straight tunnel at an angle to Diridon as the alignment they thought the Authority should adopt. They weren't very concerned that it meant the station would be over 100 feet underground.

They were very surprised to hear the maximum permissible noise levels for freight trains (the locomotive) at 55 mph and HSR at 150 mph are the same at 90 dba. The freight cars can apparently be even louder.

They were very upset at the planned peak level of operations of 11 tph in each direction. They were upset despite the fact that the presenter made clear that this was for 2035.

In other words, HSR through the Gardner and Willow Glen areas wouldn't be louder than the existing trains, and like their counterparts on the Peninsula, believe they have some right to dictate the operations of the train corridor (which they don't). Peter continued:

And when I say above that the presenters were "brutally honest," I mean that when they didn't have the answer yet and had not yet studied the issue in-depth enough to have an answer, they said so.

I know people are going to claim they were hiding things, but I just didn't get that impression.

The presenters stated that they were shooting to go as fast as they could between Diridon and Gilroy. It sounded like they liked the idea of the curve around Morgan Hill in order to enable them to possibly 220 mph.

There was one crazy still trying to get Altamont, and he even had a handout ("This is a better choice")with an alignment splitting in Pleasanton and one spur going south to San Jose International and another going via a Transbay Tube and ending beneath SFO.

Two San Jose Board of Supervisors members were there and they made their pitch for the "straighter" tunnel alignment that allowed the trains to go faster, and oh, by the way, would mean they would be out of sight, out of mind.

Oh, and supposedly they are now considering a Morgan Hill station instead of Gilroy....they are considering the Morgan Hill station because the City of Morgan Hill asked them to. All of the alignment alternatives raised are being considered because they have to be. I highly doubt they'll put a station in Morgan Hill, same as I think a 100 foot deep underground station at Diridon is ludicrous.

Here again I'll say the same thing I said about the Palo Alto HSR design workshop: if San José and/or Santa Clara County want a tunnel from Diridon Station southward, they need to come up with a way to pay for it. That strikes me as even less likely given that the county is already on the hook for a multibillion dollar tunnel, to bring BART to downtown San José.

As Clem noted, the CHSRA does listen to and incorporate public feedback - in this case, the "Thread the Needle" plan floated by Gardner/Willow Glen residents, which as you can see on the image below, has been incorporated by the CHSRA as an alignment option:



The simplest solution to me looks like the existing Caltrain corridor through the Gardner neighborhood. If residents want another solution, whether a costly tunnel or a costly and tightly-curved aerial structure shown in green, they'll have to find a way to pay for it. It's not government's nor the public's job to subsidize their home values.

For getting the trains out of central San José, there's the issue of what to do if the UPRR ROW along Monterey Highway is unavailable. The solution as proposed below involves using the Highway 87 and Highway 85 corridors.



I wish I had more specifics on this, because those corridors are already being used by VTA light rail. I do not believe it is either wise or desirable to sacrifice VTA light rail for HSR, and the cost of widening the ROW along both routes would be quite high. Still, if there's no federal pressure put on UPRR to come to an agreement about the ROW, this may have to be explored.

Next up is Morgan Hill, where a station is being considered at the request of the city of Morgan Hill:



As Rafael noted, a Morgan Hill station would not be optimal for those of us living in the Monterey Bay Area (and there are almost a million of us, not an inconsequential number). A Gilroy station is both ideal and still the most likely option.

Of course, the other interesting thing about this map is the possibility of following the Highway 101 corridor. I drive that corridor pretty frequently, including last Saturday, when I took a close look at the options for placing HSR tracks alongside the road. This is very doable. The east side of 101 has more space in the Morgan Hill area, and the west side has more space through San Martin. Because the 101 corridor here is straight and not built up, unlike the Peninsula, it strikes me as an appropriate place to put HSR tracks.

I'm skipping over the slide on the Pacheco Pass and moving directly to the Los Banos region, where a wide range of options are on the table:



As you can see, there are three main issues here: Can the CHSRA build through the grassland? What do you do with the wye at Chowchilla? And can you use the UPRR/Highway 99 alignment? I have no strong preferences here, although the Firebaugh alignment would seem to rule out a maintenance hub at Merced.

Obviously there's quite a lot going on here. To me the best solution is to use the existing Caltrain ROW through Gardner, use federal mediation to reach an accommodation with UPRR in the Monterey Highway area and along the Highway 99 corridor, and use the straightest and most direct route through a narrow portion of the grassland.

I would prefer the HSR trains go through central Morgan Hill and particularly central Gilroy. Those cities are under intense pressure to build urban sprawl, and an HSR station in downtown Gilroy, where the existing Caltrain station is located, would instead help channel that growth back into the existing urban center. That being said, I'm open to a 101 alignment, especially east of Morgan Hill, if that can enable trains to go at a faster speed.

New Animations of Peninsula Corridor

A new video animation of possible HSR implementations through Palo Alto has been circulating, and a link was posted to it in the comments on yesterday's post. I thought it worth posting, as it looks quite a lot better than anything else we've seen:



That being said, I cannot imagine that the depictions of the above-grade solutions, whether the viaduct or the retained fill, will please the Peninsula NIMBYs. As Clem noted in the comments to yesterday's post, we have to unpack the term "barrier":

As a San Carlos resident, I can't agree with this at all--unless you meant a visual barrier. Visual barriers don't prevent you getting from point A to point B, which is what a physical barrier does (like the tracks in Palo Alto).

San Carlos = high visual, low physical barrier

Palo Alto = low visual, high physical barrier

The whole "division," "barrier," and "Berlin Wall" debate needs to be separated into physical and visual components before it starts to make any sense. Conflating the two is confusing and is often used to scaremongering advantage.

All of the solutions depicted in this video would create a low physical barrier. As we saw over the weekend in Palo Alto, residents also want a low visual barrier in the form of a tunnel, but it is very, very uncertain whether this is financially possible.

Further, there is a third kind of barrier that must be considered - a "mental geography" barrier. Californians have been trained to see above-grade structures as creating spatial divisions and separations within communities, between neighborhoods. An above-ground high visual barrier is usually seen as a something that causes separation and division - which is why the totally ridiculous term "Berlin Wall" used by NIMBYs to describe the above-ground solutions is able to gain any currency at all on the Peninsula. Those barriers are often permeable and people learn to adapt to them, just as Palo Alto, Menlo Park and Atherton have apparently maintained a high quality of life with the much more obtrusive physical barrier of at-grade tracks. But these images are likely to reinforce the perception of an above-ground solution as an undesirable barrier, no matter how positive the effects are likely to be.

I don't know who produced this video, and that would be a rather important matter, especially in determining whether the depiction of the above-ground solutions are fair and realistic or not.

Has Palo Alto Turned The Corner?

Over the weekend Palo Alto hosted an HSR design workshop that included working groups focused on a number of different neighborhoods in Palo Alto, Menlo Park and Atherton. I wasn't able to attend owing to last-minute work commitments. But judging by the reports, it was an extremely productive event where residents came up with their preferred plans - and even explored ways to pay for them.

If you were there, by all means, post your thoughts in the comments. For now, I'm going to have to rely on the local press. Sue Dremann at Palo Alto Online had a good overview:

The two-day workshop, sponsored by the Peninsula Cities Consortium, brought together residents, city and Caltrain officials, architects, and experts in transportation, geology, tunneling, historic resources, finance and public art to discuss the visionary futures for the rail corridor.

The consensus was for undergrounded tracks with parks, community gardens, a bicycle boulevard, green spaces, shops and streets to connect neighborhoods now divided by the at-grade and elevated tracks....

Most groups said tunneling the trains seemed the best alternatve -- but they recognized the complexity and cost. The groups considered boring deep beneath creeks and avoiding damage to El Palo Alto, the city's iconic redwood.

Dremann's article goes into some detail on the various neighborhood proposals, but I want to focus on the bigger picture. Assuming this is an accurate reflection of the event, I am extremely pleased to hear this. I've always been open to a tunnel - the question is instead the cost, and according to Dremann, the locals fully understand it:

Some groups suggested the project could be funded by a one-percent sales tax hike, as was done in Berkeley when Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) was built. Others suggested a voter-approved 30-year property-tax fee could cover costs.

Both funding models are sensible, since they rightly recognize that they will have to pay for a tunnel themselves. If these cities can muster the public support to approve such a tax, and if they can show it will pay for the costs of the tunnel, then I'll be one of the biggest supporters of such a plan.

Funding an underground solution is not likely to be a simple matter. Gennady Sheyner's Palo Alto Online article makes that pretty clear:

But speakers at Sunday's workshop also acknowledged a major obstacle standing between them and their idealistic vision: the high cost of creating underground tunnels. While rail officials don't expect to have a cost estimate for the project for another year, they have estimated the cost of boring tunnels to be about 6.5 times as much as building at grade.

The cost of building underground tunnels is also expected to be beyond the rail authority's $4.2 billion budget for the Peninsula segment.

Glenn Isaacson, principal at Conversion Management Association, said cities would have a hard time funding a tunnel, but offered several ways in which it could be done. Aside from passing bond measures or enacting special taxes, cities could sell land currently occupied by the Caltrain right-of-way and use the proceeds to pay for the tunnels, he said.

Workshop participants have also singled out a downtown stretch between El Camino Real and Alma Street as a possible site for dense, revenue-generating developments, including multi-story condominiums. But Isaacson warned that the project would still likely require significant additional funding from the California High-Speed Rail Authority.

"I'd urge you to watch your pennies in the cost of what you select," Isaacson advised the audience. "You'll have a hard time covering 100 percent of the gap."

My guess is they'll have to do all of the above - property assessments, passing a bond, and selling air rights - to fund an underground solution. One possible solution is for the CHSRA to lay out the cost of an above-grade solution (some of these articles mention an "at-grade" implementation as a possibility, which it is not) and then tell the locals that if they want to go above and beyond by building a tunnel, they have to pay for those added costs.

If you want to get public support for paying those costs locally, you have to sell not the process, nor the technical solution, but you have to sell a vision. A vision of a better Peninsula. And that too is something that the locals understand:

California's high-speed-rail project could offer Palo Alto and its neighboring cities a rare opportunity to revitalize their downtown districts, transform old train tracks into leafy gateways and bring neighborhoods closer together, a group of leading urban designers and architects said at a Sunday workshop....

Judith Wasserman, a member of Palo Alto's Architectural Review Board, gave the plan a special name: "Together Again for the First Time." Wasserman said an underground system could offer the city a long-awaited chance to connect its neighborhoods.

"The town has always been divided by the train," Wasserman said. "We've never had good cross-town connection. This is an opportunity we'll never have again."

Of course, Wasserman has it backwards; the train was there before the town. But that shouldn't take away from what is a very reasonable and supportable vision for how HSR can enhance and improve the local community.

That all being said, there are two huge, related caveats that we all need to keep in mind before we pronounce the corner being turned on the Peninsula HSR debate.

The first is the above-grade solution. It makes sense for everyone involved to have the community do work on determining how to implement an above-grade four-track solution in a way neighbors can live with. Neither Caltrain, the CHSRA, nor the Peninsula cities can afford to pin their hopes on getting voter approval for a tax increase to build a tunnel. Such work may have been done this weekend and just didn't make its way into the reports, but it is vital that the design workshops include an emphasis on planning above-grade solutions.

The second is freight rail. As we saw at the Palo Alto teach-in last month, the Peninsula Freight Rail Users Group is adamant that freight rail continue to operate much as it does today, and Union Pacific has its trackage rights that have to be considered as well. It's theoretically possible to design a tunnel that could accommodate freight rail, but the design for that is very, very different from tunnels for passenger trains alone. Since many of the proposals for tunneling in Palo Alto and neighboring cities revolve around using the at-grade land for purposes other than a railroad, that means they're going to have to build a tunnel big enough to possibly accommodate 4 tracks and high enough to accommodate today's containerized double-stacked freight consists.

I don't know if that all was discussed at the workshop. But it should have been, and it needs to be discussed going forward. Otherwise what was a very productive and valuable planning workshop may not actually be as effective as it ought to be.

CHSRA Staff Recommendation for Phase 2 Stimulus Funding

California High Speed Rail Authority staff have released their recommendations for funding applications for the Phase 2 of the federal stimulus this fall. They focus on "design/build" in four corridors:

1. San Francisco to San José ($1.28 billion)

2. Merced to Fresno ($466 million)

3. Fresno to Bakersfield ($819 million)

4. Los Angeles to Anaheim ($2 billion)

The application also includes funding for preliminary work in all the corridors of the planned HSR route, including the Sacramento and San Diego extensions.

The four "design/build" corridors would enable actual construction of trackage to commence, though to varying levels of completion. Only the Caltrain corridor would include full electrification, and there it would also include Positive Train Control (PTC), along with the San Bruno curve and other "high-priority" grade separations. Merced to Fresno and Fresno to Bakersfield would see tracks built, but no electrification or PTC. (Merced to Fresno is to be along the UPRR/CA-99 corridor, which is obviously going to be an issue; Fresno to Bakersfield is via BNSF corridor.) LA to Anaheim would be everything except electrification (including PTC).

Given the limited possibilities of the way the stimulus is written, this is a pretty sensible approach. Getting PTC and electrification on the Caltrain corridor is an extremely high priority both for Caltrain's survival and for getting HSR seeded on the Peninsula. The trackwork in the Valley will help enable the test track, and getting LA to Anaheim mostly built means it won't take much to get genuine HSR up and running in an extremely high-profile corridor.

Notice that the Merced-Bakersfield piece has been defined as two segments. CHSRA staff are recommending that both segments be pursued in the stimulus funding application. But the possibility that only one of the two could get funded is generating some unease in the San Joaquin Valley:

On Tuesday the Tulare County Board of Supervisors will vote to intervene in contention centered on a potential high speed rail line in the San Joaquin Valley.

The supervisors will take a stand on whether or not a segment of rail should stretch from Bakersfield to Merced, or only to the halfway point in Fresno.

Federal money to design and build the rail is now available through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, however some have suggested that only one of the segments should be submitted to the Federal Rail Administration for funding.

The California Partnership for the San Joaquin Valley has suggested that valley officials advocate for the entire system, as voters approved a statewide high speed rail system with the passage of Proposition 1A in 2008.

A decision on how the far the rail should extend, and to what counties, is expected to be made Sept. 23 at a special meeting held by the San Joaquin Valley Policy Council.

As you can see by the staff recommendation, CHSRA is committing itself to funding BOTH segments of the Valley corridor. But that may not be enough for key players in the Valley, who want to ensure that HSR isn't built in pieces.

Overall I think this is a sound approach to the federal stimulus, given the limitations of the ARRA law. The only concern I have is that there's nothing for the construction of the mountainous segments through the Pacheco and Tehachapi Passes, but there's probably no way those plans can be "shovel ready" by September 2012, as ARRA requires.

Have at it in the comments.

Deputy AG Letter Supports CHSRA's Transbay Position

Yesterday the California Attorney General's office responded to an August 21 letter from the Transbay Joint Powers Authority. The TJPA letter argued that it is "legally improper" for the CHSRA to study any alternatives to the Transbay Terminal as the San Francisco terminus. Deputy AG Christine Sproul, writing on behalf of AG Jerry Brown, explained the AG office's position that CHSRA is entirely correct to study other alternatives. The letter is reproduced below:

Deputy AG Transbay Letter to CHSRA ED 91709

I have to run and catch a train here in Sacramento, but I wanted to get this up there for everyone on the blog to read and react to. Obviously this means the dispute between CHSRA and TJPA is not going away anytime soon. I continue to believe that political leadership, particularly from San Francisco's powerful federal representatives, is desperately needed to bring CHSRA and TJPA to the table to develop a workable solution.

What's Up With the Transbay Terminal?

Been meaning to write about this for a few days now, as those that I talked to at the Palo Alto teach-in can attest. As you've probably noticed if you've followed some of the blogs and even local news outlets, there's quite a dispute emerging over the Transbay Terminal project, with Quentin Kopp making moves in recent weeks to push for major changes to HSR's interface with it. One of the best overviews of the matter is over at Eric's Transbay Blog:

So what’s the beef now? Rather than employ the downtown extension alignment and station location previously adopted by the Transbay Joint Powers Authority, the CHSRA would instead like to override the TJPA’s previous efforts and study alternative locations for the San Francisco terminus in its project-level EIR/EIS for the San Francisco-San Jose segment. In particular, the CHSRA has set its sight on another terminal to accommodate its exaggerated capacity requirements — the Beale Street terminal, situated parallel to Beale Street, and stretching roughly from Mission Street to Harrison Street. But this is an alternative that was resurrected from the dead. In the 1990s, a handful of potential Caltrain downtown extension alignments were considered. Most of those, including alignments leading to a Beale Street terminal, were rejected as undesirable or infeasible.

What happened was this: CHSRA obtained a legal opinion from lawyer Duane Morris that claims TJPA is obligated to review the Beale Street alternative under both CEQA and NEPA, under the argument that the existing EIR/EIS was approved on the basis of Caltrain being the primary user of the downtown tunnel extension (DTX). Since HSR's use requirements are different, the opinion goes, a new EIR/EIS is needed that would include the Beale alignment.

As Rafael has charted before, there are legitimate concerns with the design of the train box at Transbay, including the curvature of the "throat." But Eric at Transbay Blog suggests CHSRA is actually motivated by financial concerns:

But it does not seem coincidental that the agency’s temper — presumably largely fueled by, or embodied in, its ever-colorful former chairman, Quentin Kopp — flares up at the exact points in time when the TJPA competes with the CHSRA for access to new pots of funding that are being made available for high-speed rail....California has submitted project requests to the U.S. Department of Transportation, including a $400 million request that, if granted, would allow the Transbay Transit Center’s train box to be excavated sooner rather than later, using a “bottom up” construction approach. Transbay, by virtue of its completed environmental documents, is classified as a “ready-to-go” project, eligible for a Track 1 high-speed rail stimulus grant. In just a few weeks, the Federal Railroad Administration will announce the Track 1 projects that it has selected for grants.

It is this issue that has caused tempers to flare over this dispute. The Federal Railroad Administration is going to decide soon on whether Transbay and the train box will get federal HSR stimulus money. TJPA and the Bay Area transit community are concerned - rightly - that CHSRA's actions will jeopardize that money.

To that end Brian Stanke, Executive Director of Californians for High Speed Rail, has authored the following letter to Joseph Szabo, Administrator of the FRA. It is a detailed argument as to why Transbay Terminal deserves the $400 million, and why CHSRA's claims are invalid and should not be used to withhold that money:

CA4HSR FRA Letter

CHSRA has not offered any official comment on this subject for this post, despite my inquiries. Based on other published reports, including things we have discussed at this blog, we do know that CHSRA has raised concerns about the platform capacity at Transbay. We also know that the relationship between TJPA and CHSRA is very sour. Last December Kopp blasted TJPA's Maria Ayerdi-Kaplan for trying to keep Kopp and CHSRA out of the planning and discussion process. For their part, as Eric noted above, TJPA believes CHSRA has been trying to undermine the Transbay project at almost every turn.

Although the CHSRA may believe any problems with the HSR/DTX project lie with TJPA, it should be quite clear to them they have lost this particular battle in the court of public opinion. Bay Area transit advocates are outraged at the prospect of the Transbay trainbox losing out on badly needed federal funding. The use of development rights - specifically, selling the air rights to build skyscrapers to help pay for the Transbay project - is correctly seen as an innovative model for funding urban transit infrastructure. The DTX and train box are considered vital for bringing more mass transit commuters to the SF urban core - particularly for Caltrain. Proposition H passed by a significant margin in 1999 by SF voters to approve the project, and the project remains popular with San Francisco residents.

We don't yet know if it is too late, but my strong advice to CHSRA is to make peace with the Transbay Terminal project. If the federal funding is denied, it will do nothing to help CHSRA's relationships around the state and could cause a reaction from SF's influential political leadership. If there were enormous flaws with the design then that would be good reason to oppose the funding and redesign the project, but even those who have criticized the design of the "throat" haven't suggested the project be scrapped or that the "throat" design is unworkable (although it is not an ideal design).

I also renew my call for federal intervention. Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Dianne Feinstein are extremely well positioned to play a role as mediator between TJPA and CHSRA. We called for this to occur last December when the CHSRA/TJPA dispute first emerged. It hasn't happened and both the Transbay Terminal and the HSR project are worse off for it.

Thoughts on the Palo Alto Teach-In

Yesterday's "teach-in" hosted by the Peninsula Cities Consortium in Palo Alto was a rather interesting - and useful - event. I had to leave right after lunch, so my comments are only going to be focused on the two opening speeches and the first panel. I hope and expect folks will offer their own review of the day, including the afternoon "open space" session, down in the comments.

My comments are divided in two segments: first, some thoughts on the specific presentations and panels I saw, and then an assessment of where things stand on the Peninsula.

Yoriko Kishimoto, Palo Alto city councilmember and one of the lead organizers of the "teach-in," helped put together a very good meeting and should be credited for helping make it happen. In her opening remarks she said that the day's events were to proceed from the assumption that HSR was going to happen on the Peninsula, and the best thing to do was to come together to determine how best it should be implemented.

The first speaker was Gary Patton, former Santa Cruz County supervisor and counsel to the Planning and Conservation League. He proceeded to almost completely blow Kishimoto's constructive opening statement out of the water with an exhortation to the audience to ignore the will of the voters in passing Prop 1A. Patton's argument is that any project can be stopped. He isn't wrong about that, but the idea that we should reject the voters' will runs counter to his calls for democracy and engagement with the planning process.

Patton claimed that voters didn't approve "high speed rail" but merely authorized $10 billion in bonds. Which flies in the face of the fact that Californians voted for that money precisely because they liked the idea of a high speed train following the route the CHSRA laid out. Patton's assumption is that if Palo Alto residents don't want the train, they can organize and pressure their legislators to stop it. But that doesn't deal with the fact that anti-HSR folks aren't the only ones engaged in the public, democratic process, or that 6 million Californians voted to support that train and probably aren't going to be moved by the complaints of a few.

After trying to redefine what voters did last November, Patton went on to repeat virtually every single HSR denier claim, including attacks on ridership projections, cost overruns, and even repeating the "Berlin Wall" claim. Patton even went so far as to compare HSR to offshore drilling.

Patton seems to be of the school that contends any new development that might induce growth is bad and therefore must be stopped. He claimed that Santa Cruz County's changing growth patterns were somehow a success to be emulated, and even cited his role in defeating a Rod Diridon-supported train from San Jose to Santa Cruz. But those aren't exactly arguments in his favor. Instead of allowing more density in Santa Cruz, which suffers from a severe housing shortage and sky-high prices, development was channeled to Watsonville instead. As a result, Santa Cruz County is almost impossible to get around as Highway 1 is hopelessly jammed. The county is desperately trying to get passenger rail service up and running to deal with the transportation crisis. Patton's model for Santa Cruz County has been a failure for everyone except those who have owned homes in Santa Cruz and still have enough work or income or wealth to survive the downturn and the traffic-choked, unaffordable mess Santa Cruz County has become.

No coincidence then that Patton was in Palo Alto bringing the same message to locals. Patton seems to believe that an eternal 1970s can and should be maintained. But what of the consequences? What of global warming? Economic growth? Mass transportation? The future of Caltrain? None of these were mentioned by Patton.

He also mentioned the Atherton v. CHSRA lawsuit and decision, but wasn't honest with the audience about it. He didn't mention the fact that the judge upheld every aspect of the Pacheco choice, and the only thing about the EIR not upheld was the Union Pacific ROW issue between San José and Gilroy, an issue that would exist along the Altamont alignment as well.

Patton's presence, along with Richard Tolmach's presentation later in the morning, undermined Kishimoto's goal of working within the framework of assuming HSR on the Peninsula would happen. Both Patton and Tolmach clearly have not accepted the decision of the voters to build this train, both want to undermine the basic elements of the project, and both prefer to fight HSR itself rather than find the right way to build it on the Peninsula.

I understand the desire of the event planners to have all views represented. But if the goal is to figure out how to build HSR on the Peninsula in a way that residents can live with, having people like Patton and Tolmach arguing against HSR itself is not useful to achieving that goal.

After Patton came Bob Doty, who was a breath of fresh air - not just for the room but for the Caltrain/HSR project itself. He fundamentally understands what needs to be done and how to achieve it. He recognizes that the whole country is watching California HSR. If we get it right, and build it right, we're going to make HSR possible around the country. But if we screw it up, and can't get it built, it's hard to see how HSR is going to get very far elsewhere in the country.

Doty once again showed he is the right person to speak to the Peninsula on this project. He gives clear and direct answers to questions, even when the answer is "I don't know." Doty explained that the best way to get this project built on-time and on-budget is to get the early planning done the right way at the outset - to invest time and money into finalizing all the details, and then sticking to that plan once it has been agreed.

Doty also earned the trust of many in the room, if not all the hardcore anti-HSR folks, when he said that BART to SFO was a "bad project" that "screwed the Peninsula." That was an important point to acknowledge, given the bad taste the project left in many mouths, and given Quentin Kopp's role in the HSR project.

Another key point Doty made, one that keeps getting overlooked on the Peninsula, is that HSR is necessary to Caltrain's survival. Caltrain needs to electrify in order to survive. That's the only way they can accommodate future ridership growth, the only way they can manage operating costs, the only way they can have financial survival with a 75% farebox recovery rate (Doty's prediction).

As the Peninsula continues to discuss the implementation of HSR, Doty is going to play a key and quite valuable role in helping shepherd this to completion in a fair and sensible way.

The morning panel was interesting and quite useful, aside from Tolmach. I wanted to single out Greg Greenway, representing the Peninsula Freight Rail Users Group, who made some important points that need to be kept in mind. Freight rail is just as much a part of our transportation future as is passenger rail. PFRUG supports HSR, but wants to make sure it protects existing freight rail capacity. Greenway mentioned three specific concerns: operating hours, height of overhead wires, and the South San Francisco yard. It is definitely essential to preserve freight rail, and Caltrain/HSR appear determined to do exactly that. Let's hope others on the Peninsula agree and don't support proposals that would limit the effectiveness of freight rail.

Now, on to the broader assessment of where things stand. I believe there are basically two conversations happening on the Peninsula: first, whether or not HSR should even happen on the Peninsula; and second, how it should be implemented.

The first conversation is going to continue no matter what, but it is not useful or productive at this point. The voters have spoken, the route has been selected, and billions of dollars have been or are about to be committed. While Gary Patton is right that none of this is irreversible, there is no reason to turn back now. HSR is good for California and good for the Peninsula. Caltrain cannot survive without it. So I don't see how it does any good for folks on the Peninsula to continue debating whether or not HSR should happen.

The second conversation is very productive, useful, and necessary. I have always supported that conversation, so long as it happens within the framework that Kishimoto laid out at the meeting's outset - an assumption that HSR is going to happen on the Peninsula.

I think for that conversation to be successful, a few things need to be done. First, the public needs to be given a realistic assessment of project scope and limitations. What are some of the financial guidelines? What are some of the legal guidelines? What are some of the practical guidelines? For example, Kishimoto's statement ought to be clarified: HSR is going to happen on the Caltrain ROW. The silly and unworkable notion of building it on I-280 or US-101 needs to be abandoned. But it would also help if there was some sense, for example, of what locals are willing to offer in terms of funding in order to build a tunnel. Residents cannot assume that someone else will pay for a tunnel. Like Berkeley BART, most of that cost will have to be paid for by the locals themselves. If they want a tunnel, it is reasonable to expect them to pay for it, especially if a tunnel is more expensive than above-grade tracks.

Second, future events should probably not include folks who are pushing an anti-HSR agenda. If Palo Alto, for example, truly wants to find a workable solution to the question of how to build the Caltrain/HSR project, then there's really no point to having Gary Patton and Richard Tolmach there.

Third, the rest of the Peninsula needs to be given a greater role. As Bianca noted, Burlingame and Belmont seem to the ugly stepchildren of the Peninsula Cities Consortium - their issues and needs didn't really come up much at the part of the meeting I attended. Sure, the location of the meeting in Palo Alto probably helped explain that bias, but it speaks to a need to think of this project regionally. Residents and elected leaders in other cities are much more supportive of HSR, including Redwood City and Mountain View.

Finally, I think we need to get a better understanding of the different viewpoints out there. A lot of people on the Peninsula want HSR to happen - after all, Prop 1A did get a 67% yes vote in San Mateo County. Their views don't seem to be represented well at these kinds of meetings. There is a small number of NIMBYs who are absolutely opposed to this project, and then there's a grab bag of people in the middle, who aren't opposed to HSR but have concerns about how it will be built. That group is being influenced by the NIMBYs, who have been very effective at getting out their talking points, many of which are misstatements or just flat out lies.

The CHSRA hasn't been able to counter that, primarily due to a lack of funding. This "teach-in" would have been perfect for the summer of 2007 or even 2008. But the CHSRA was fighting for its financial life during those years, as Arnold Schwarzenegger at one point (spring 2007) proposed cutting the CHSRA's budget almost to zero. They'd asked for about $130 million, and ultimately received about $50 million, which itself got delayed by the Legislature's inability to agree to a budget. That didn't help the HSR project get off on the right foot on the Peninsula, and it enabled some mistrust and misstatements to take hold. Much of what is being done now, both on the part of the CHSRA and the locals, is making up for lost time.

And I think that yesterday's teach-in helped push that in the right direction. The NIMBYs and HSR deniers aside, I felt that there is a workable coalition for moving forward on the design process over the next 18-24 months on the Peninsula. Locals need to lay out their preferences and priorities, and project planners need to lay out their own needs, their own priorities, and most importantly, what the limitations are on this project.

If there is a genuine commitment to building HSR the right way - and I felt that many in the room shared that commitment - then this project will bring the benefits to the Peninsula, and improve the quality of life, that it ought to be producing.

I hope others who attended will give their thoughts in the comments. It was good to see you all there yesterday, to those I missed, my apologies. I wished I could have stayed all day.

Finally, thanks to Steve Emslie, Yoriko Kishimoto, Sara Anderson, Nadia Naik, and everyone else who helped make the teach-in happen. It was exactly what the Peninsula needs, and I look forward to participating in future meetings.

Fear and Loathing in San Jose

by Rafael

We can't stop here. This is bat BART country.

The recent Initial Ruling On Atherton vs. CHSRA highlighted the issue of ROW acquisition, especially if that might involve exercising eminent domain. There's been a lot of speculation about the possible implications for the route out of the Bay Area and even the project as a whole. However, the plain truth is that it's now up to the judge to spell out the remedial actions CHSRA must take to bring the program level of its EIR process for the Bay Area to Central Valley section back into compliance.

One aspect that will surely have to be addressed is the issue of exactly where and how to run dedicated HSR tracks between San Jose Diridon and Gilroy, a topic I'll explore below. First though, let's recap why CHSRA preferred a route that goes through San Jose at all.

Economic Objectives

San Jose likes to bill itself as the "Capital of Silicon Valley", which actually stretches from San Jose all the way up to San Mateo and across to Cupertino. Much of the so-called "Golden Triangle" portion, bordered by US-101, I-880 and CA-237, actually lies in Santa Clara and to a lesser extent, in Milpitas. However, most of Silicon Valley is chock-full of high-tech computer hardware and software companies, ranging from highly innovative startups to global leaders in the computing and internet industries. Along with agriculture and the movie/TV industry, Silicon Valley is a primary economic engine for the state.

Both directly and indirectly, tax revenue from these companies and their workforce will contribute a large fraction of the funding for the California HSR project. Paradoxically, wealth is both why HSR has to serve Silicon Valley and why CHSRA is facing opposition to an alignment with elevated sections in the SF peninsula.

San Jose has about a million residents, making it the country's tenth-largest city. However, a significant fraction of Silicon Valley's highly skilled workforce neither lives nor works within city limits, a situation San Jose's civic leaders would like to change. The General Plan shows the location of these limits and also the city's development pattern. Most of the built-up area is "medium low density residential", though there are some higher-density developments here and there. A sizeable area just south-east of the SJC airport is blighted by aircraft noise and FAA-imposed maximum building heights. It is used by the US Army and for Guadeloupe Park.

The Diridon station lies just west of the flight path and, high-density residential housing has been/is being built just west of it. However, except for Caltrain's CEMOF maintenance facility and the HP Pavilion, long-standing efforts to attract commercial development between the station and CA-87 haven't been as successful. Back lots and at-grade parking lots are plentiful. Caltrain ridership into and out of Diridon station has historically been low for that very reason. In conjunction with the BART extension, HSR is supposed to deliver what Caltrain never could: attract commercial and residential development to the mid-town and downtown areas within approx. 1/2 mile of the station.

Note that neither HSR nor the long-sought BART extension are fully funded at this point and that there's no reason to believe airport blight will abate.

Transit Oriented Development

Nevertheless, San Jose is giving this another try and hosting a visioning workshop for the Diridon station area:

Date: Saturday, Sept. 12, 2009
Time: 9:00-12:00
Location: Parkside Hall, Room B (west of Tech Museum of Innovation), 180 Park Ave

(Note that as reported earlier, the Innovation Place HSR Workshop in Palo Alto will be held on the same day from 9:00am-3:30pm. See also Clem's post Palo Alto Innovates)

Separate plans for transit-oriented development already exist or are in development for Santa Clara, Beryessa, Fremont Warm Springs, Union City and Fremont Centerville (context: Dumbarton Rail + Amtrak CC/ACE). All of these are supposed to boost ridership into the downtown-midtown area of San Jose and, to connect to HSR at Diridon station.

HSR Phase 1: San Francisco, San Jose and Points In-Between

Whether all of these plans for rail transit and transit-oriented development will come to fruition or fail to attract sufficient funding remains to be seen. However, while the wording of AB3034 would technically permit CHSRA to exclude San Jose from phase 1 or even from later phases, any attempt to do so would face massive political opposition on account of the above. Note that the bill, which was the basis of prop 1A(2008), specifically requires the starter line of the HSR network to terminate at the San Francisco Transbay Terminal. Therefore, terminating it San Jose for now as some have proposed would require the state legislators to amend the bill with a 2/3 majority in both houses and probably, a new ballot proposition to approve that amendment. San Francisco would never allow that to happen.

Ergo, for all intents and purposes, both SF and SJ need to be served by HSR in phase 1. The most straightforward way to do that is to leverage the PCJPA's Caltrain ROW and cross over into the Central Valley via Pacheco Pass. Since Caltrain "baby bullet" service takes 57 minutes between these two cities and AB3034 explicitly mandates that express HSR trains do it in just 30, the plan of record is to quad-track the entire ROW, even though narrow ROW sections such as downtown San Mateo present major engineering challenges if eminent domain is to be avoided at all costs. A second complication is that even if FRA gives Caltrain a waiver to operate mixed traffic (new non-compliant electric EMUs + a few legacy diesels for SJ-Gilroy + UPRR freight trains) at up to 79mph, it almost certainly won't give CHSRA the same luxury in the related but separate "rule of special applicability".

So, for both regulatory and capacity reasons, the intent is to upgrade the Caltrain corridor for mostly two tracks to a full four everywhere. Building just HSR tracks in another peninsula corridor, US-101, was considered but rejected due to constructability issues (lack of available medians) and because the corridor doesn't run near the desired stations. Also, this option would have done nothing to fully grade separate and electrify Caltrain, nor could peninsula residents have transferred to long-distance HSR trains at selected stations between SF and SJ.

Approaches into San Jose Diridon

South of San Tomas Expressway in Santa Clara, CHSRA's Google map of the route (please zoom in) shows an expensive trench/tunnel section to just north of SJ Diridon. Presumably, that's just two tracks reserved for HSR, so Caltrain would remain at grade (it's already grade separated in the area). Also note that the HSR tracks need to cross over or under the UPRR tracks somewhere between Santa Clara and Gilroy. Doing so in Santa Clara isn't possible because the BART tracks will run east of UPRR's line as far south as West Santa Clara Street, immediately north of Diridon station. Present plans therefore call for HSR to stay west of the Caltrain tracks. Note that tracks will need to emerge to the surface north of W. Julian St. since that's an existing underpass and tracks need run length to fan out to the platform tracks on the new deck above the Caltrain/UPRR tracks.

CHSRA's plan of record calls for a mix of aerials, embankments and cut/fill sections to cross I-280 and reach Gilroy via the UPRR/Monterey Hwy corridor. In some sections, the UPRR ROW might have to be widened via acquisition of land or air rights from private property owners - via eminent domain if need be. Failure to qualify the risk of such takings was one of the complaints the judge upheld in Atherton vs. CHSRA.

The track fan south of Diridon station can merge west, east or directly above the UPRR tracks, as desired. However, note that W San Carlos St. is currently an overpass. It would have to be converted to an underpass to keep HSR tracks from having to change elevation yet again. However, there's probably a good reason is was built as an overpass to begin with. Also, it's not clear if all of the HSR-related grade separation works shown on CHSRA's Google map are strictly for the new HSR tracks or would also include the legacy tracks used for UPRR freight, Caltrain and Amtrak Coast Starlight. By default, the latter might be preferable, but also much more difficult to construct (shoofly tracks). Given the low total volume of FRA-compliant traffic between San Jose and Gilroy - just 6 freight, 6 Caltrains and 2 Amtrak trains - it may well be acceptable to retain grade crossings for the legacy tracks only.

Since UPRR declined to entertain an offer because of supposed safety concerns, it cannot credibly pretend they've magically gone away even CHSRA were to offer it the moon. At the very least, there would have to be some engineering studies to determine if a given implementation proposed by CHSRA meets UPRR's criteria, which it hasn't even spelled out yet. This could drag on for years even if price were no longer an issue.

Ergo, UPRR's decision not to offer up any of its ROW nor air rights above it south of Lick (Caltrain's Tamien Yard, just north of Almaden Expwy/87) means CHSRA will have to secure land/air rights nearby, if only to avoid delaying the project. This will be tricky to achieve without eminent domain, especially near the gated communities just south of Curtner Ave, which is an overpass. Note that a VTA light rail line runs in the CA-87 and CA-85 medians.

Alternative to the UPRR ROW

However, the medians of both I-280 and US-101 are still available. Freeway medians are usually narrow, possibly limiting the maximum safe speed to below what CHSRA was counting on for a given section of the route. BART trains aren't constrained, but then their top speed is 79mph to begin with. As always the devil is in the details, i.e. exactly how many feet of width are available. Google Map's satellite view doesn't provide that level of precision.

The hardest part would be the section between W Santa Clara St and just east of the gnarly I-280/CA-87 interchange. Overpasses there may not be tall enough to permit HSR trains to run underneath, so it's better to avoid it altogether. In addition, HSR trains are limited to gradients of 3.5% and need generous curve radii at elevated speeds, so an entry point west of the interchange would be ambitious.

A deceptively simple solution would be to keep the HSR tracks underground south of CEMOF all the way to east of the interchange. Once you've bitten the bullet and gone underground, there are advantages to staying there. However, it would also put the SJ station underground, with full-length (1/4mi) platforms placed at an angle relative to those of both Caltrain and BART. There would be no need for architectural Viagra on the surface, not that need ever had anything to do with it to begin with. However, in raw transportation terms, an underground station with as little as two run-through tracks and one large island or two generous side platforms would get the job done. Fortunately, the area is partly parking lots and the aforementioned visioning workshop - a very early stage of the urban planning process - hasn't even happened yet.

There's plenty of room to run west of the BART tracks curving around the HP Pavilion, but the HSR tracks actually need to run sufficiently deep to pass under the VTA light rail line that already crosses under the Caltrain/UPRR tracks. HSR would also need to cross under the Guadeloupe River, a residential district, CA-87 and a second creek before emerging in the I-280 median. Note that the HSR tracks would also need to run either west of or else under the future BART tracks.

In other words, the HSR line and platforms would have to be very deep underground anyhow. Since San Jose is a through station anyhow, perhaps a single extra-wide island or two generous side platforms would actually be sufficient. Trains run past platforms in Europe and Japan at fairly high speed all the time. Waiting passengers are simply warned to retreat to a safe distance via the PA system and markings on the floor. The VTA tracks would prevent a full concourse level, but none is needed anyhow. Multiple pedestrian connections to the surface, to BART, Caltrain and the VTA station would be sufficient. Some of these passages could feature moving walkways to reduce transfer times. ADA compatibility would be achieved via elevators, but ramps or inclined moving walkways are more reliable in case a wheelchair user needs to be evacuated.

At the anyhow pre-blighted I-280/US-101 interchange, the cheapest solution would be a tall aerial to transition between the medians. However, it would have to fly over a descending overpass lane, so it would be a tall structure. Still, the incremental visual and noise impacts should be minor. The alternative would be to execute the transition underground, but that's more expensive.

Optional Extension through Altamont Pass

Tunneling under the I-280/US-101 interchange only makes sense if there is a desire to leverage all the work that was put into reaching the I-280 median for something else: a turnoff to continue east to I-680, whose median is also still available - all the way to the foot of the Sunol grade in Fremont, actually.

If Caltrans is prepared to reserve that median for HSR trains, it could be the basis for a future shortcut to Sacramento via Altamont Pass. Between Scott Creek Rd and E Warren Ave in Fremont Warm Springs, the tracks would veer east and across to Haynes Gulch via a long tunnel under Monument Peak. There, they would veer north, running essentially at grade next to Calaveras Rd. as far as the CA-84/Calaveras Rd exit off I-680. An aerial across the CA-84 and another tunnel would lead the tracks to an intermodal with BART at El Charro Rd in east Pleasanton/west Livermore. It would be heard to avoid impacts on both the nearby ponds and Livermore Municipal Airport, since crossing at grade is not feasible because of UPRR. Altmont Pass would be traversed - except for one short section - via the I-580 median. Passing north of Tracy, tracks would connect to the phase 2 spur to Sacramento near either Manteca or Escalon.

Optional Extension to Walnut Creek

Note that the I-680 median is still available between just north of the CA-84 exits to just south of the CA-24 interchange in Walnut Creek. A tunnel section under California Blvd. would be needed to create an intermodal with the BART station. However, that road features a tight chicane and there is a medical center next to the freeway. Tunnel tracks would have to thread a needle between its buildings. This would require a technical feasibility study as well as the consent of Kaiser Permanente regarding any number of issues, including construction nuisance and vibrations from passing trains. Eminent domain against a hospital is basically unheard of, so I'd consider the whole thing a long shot. However, even without an intermodal with BART, there would at least be HSR service to eastern Alameda and central Contra Costa county.

Maps for Alternative #1

The alternative ROW and extension options are shown on the map below. Switch to satellite mode to see why the HSR station would have to be deep underground. Zoom out in map mode to see the regional implications. Switch to terrain mode to see where there are mountains to contend with.

The picture below the map shows location of major known faults - basically, Calaveras Rd. and I-680 north of Sunol are right on top of the Calaveras fault. The Hayward fault generated the 1868 earthquake, estimated at 6.8 on the Richter scale. Paleoseismologists have estimated the mean time between such events on that particular fault to be 140 years, so statistically, it's due right around now. Perhaps it's not the most auspicious time to build a railroad, but the people of California have never allowed themselves to be paralyzed by a fear of Mother Nature. See our earlier post Shake, Rattle And Roll for more background on earthquake engineering in the railway industry.


View San Jose Diridon: HSR Underground in a larger map

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Alternative #2

Since we're talking hypotheticals anyhow, here is a second alternative based on using 101 between SJ and Gilroy.

To come up with this one, I started in Gilroy and worked my way north. It quickly became apparent that the problem in San Jose could be addressed by simply moving the HSR station to the huge transit-oriented development at Beryessa and continuing north up the East Bay instead of the SF peninsula. CHSRA did study the scenario of SF + Oakland + SJ via Pacheco but not along this particular right of way, which does not depend on UPRR but precludes extending BART south. Moreover, whatever is gained in San Jose is lost (and then some) because the only available unused railroad right of way runs from Union City to just north of Oakland Coliseum. Reaching it from Fremont Irvington with full grade separation requires tunnels in Niles, tiptoeing around the water supply for 100,000 people.

The aforementioned available ROW runs right next to BART, but unfortunately its tracks cross over in three locations. That would greatly complicate the vertical alignment, though at least heavy freight does not impose any gradient constraints.

North of Oakland Coliseum, a few miles of greenfield ROW immediately next to BART would be required, complicated by the Fruitvale station and transit village. A tunnel under the Lake Merritt outflow and 4th Street in Oakland would need to pass under the east portals of the Webster/Posey road tunnels across to Alameda. The upside is an elevated intermodal station with West Oakland BART. Sanity would dictate that HSR terminate here in phase 1, after all downtown SF is just one BART stop away. However, as discussed above, AB3034 mandates a terminus in San Francisco Transbay Terminal. Since the station there is in the basement and the new east span of the Bay Bridge was redesigned specifically not to support the weight of BART/light rail/HSR trains, a second transbay tube would have to be part of the phase 1 specifications. Note that it could not cross the existing tube underwater.

As a result of all this, switching to the East Bay would be no easier than sticking with the peninsula. Multiple hard-fought political decisions would have to be reversed, multiple EIS/EIR processes re-done. Whatever ARRA is available for California HSR would be spent elsewhere in the state.

Summary:

- HSR up 101 from Gilroy ($)
- modest elevated San Jose HSR station at Beryessa TOD ($)
- VTA's WPML ROW used for HSR (priceless ;^)
- tunnel in Niles to reach UC BART (stacked single tracks, $$)
- dedicated HSR alignment next to BART ($$$, ROW incomplete, BART crosses three times)
- tunnel under Oakland's Chinatown ($$$)
- second transbay tube to San Francisco Transbay Terminal Center ($$$$)

Consolation prizes:

- BART extended to Livermore via I-580 ($$)
- Caltrain electrification SF-SJ Diridon ($$)
- VTA light rail subway under E Santa Clara St and up to Beryessa via track stacking on short section of WPML ($$$)

Canceled: BART to Santa Clara (-$$$$)
Canceled: BART maintenance facility in Santa Clara (-$$)
Canceled: widening Caltrain corridor (-$, -litigation-related delays)
Canceled: Dumbarton rail (ROW in Union City usurped by HSR) (-$$)

Shelved indefinitely: DTX tunnel in San Francisco (-$$$)
Pushed back to PCJPA: full grade separation of Caltrain corridor (-$$$)


View HSR up WPML instead of BART in a larger map

Basically, this Alternative #2 was an interesting exercise, but it would really put a pride of lions among the pigeons. The takeaway is that switching to the East Bay would solve some political issues in the mid-peninsula at the expense of a whole new set of headaches.

Alternative #1 is more limited in scope, it "just" completely reconfigures the SJ station and moves the one in Gilroy to the 101 median.

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UPDATE: Alternative #3: Commenter BruceMcF (h/t) has suggested that stacking HSR and VTA light rail tracks in the 87/85 medians between Lick and the Santa Teresa district would be both feasible and cheaper than the alternatives discussed above.

There are multiple existing road overpasses, including Almaden Expressway and Blossom Hill Rd. next to the station there. The stacked tracks would have to fly over those, raising tracks very high. VTA light rail leaves the 87 median and forks tracks at Ohlone Chynoweth station next to the 85/87 interchange. It leaves the 85 median in the Santa Teresa district. Combined with station access issues, this favors stacking the HSR tracks on top of light rail.

However, that puts the (slightly) heavier HSR trains on top and increases noise emissions. HSR's maximum gradient is smaller than the one light rail vehicles can negotiate and, greater vertical transition radii are needed on account of the higher speed. Note that VTA light rail is triple-tracked in some sections and would be down to just two after the project. Separately, note that the 101 median is not available right at the 85/101 interchange but that land for tracks to hug the northbound on-ramp is. At an appropriate point further south, the alignment would cut back over into the median.

Note that VTA's daytime light rail operations would need to continue during the construction period.


View SJ Diridon to Gilroy via UPRR/87/85/101 in a larger map