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.

The Vexed DTX Tunnel

Just a techie tidbit note today regarding the DTX tunnel that is at the heart of the engineering side of the dispute between CHSRA and TJPA on whether the current design meets CHSRA's future needs. I know we've been over this too many times already, but somehow the issue needs to be put to bed such that everyone can save face and focus on maximizing California's share of the $9.5 billion in federal dollars already on the table. Protracted tiffs don't do much for the confidence of the general public, let alone potential private investors, in either TJPA or CHSRA.

My objective for this post is to suggest a tunnel sharing and operations timetable strategy that might help bridge the gap. First, a quick recap of the saga so far.

Issues Related to Planning and Funding

TJPA has been planning the entire Transbay Terminal since SF voters approved prop H in 1999, with the objective of bringing not just Caltrain but eventually also HSR under the same roof as a large number of bus services. The old building dates to 1939, has seen better days and is anyhow no longer up to seismic code. The only part that will be re-used are the bus ramps that once allowed electric trolley cars to run across the lower deck of the Bay Bridge. The underutilized neighborhood south of the new building will also be redeveloped.

The DTX tunnel is the bit between Caltrain's existing terminus at 4th & King Street and the basement of the new terminal building. As designed, it features three tracks under Townsend and 2nd Streets and widens into a curved throat section to reach six platforms tracks accessed via an underground concourse level and three full-length wide island platforms. Of these, two will feature the level boarding height to be chosen by CHSRA and the other the one chosen by Caltrain. The outside tunnel tracks are to be shared by both services and are permanent as inbound and outbound tracks, respectively. The center track will apparently alternate between inbound and outbound traffic.

CHSRA has recently raised a red flag regarding the design, claiming it couldn't support the 12 HSR trains per hour (tph, meaning that number each way) during peak periods claimed in the most recent ridership forecast for 2030. There seems to be fairly broad agreement among the readership of this blog that this is a new and excessive demand made public only after TJPA decided to bypass CHSRA in seeking a slice of the HSR dollars in the recent stimulus bill. Quentin Kopp is concerned this would set a precedent and cause CHSRA to lose control of project cost.

TJPA claims its plans are based on a previous estimate of just 4tph and a minimum dwell time of a full hour. The latter is itself a highly questionable requirement, given that terminal stations in Europe manage to turn HSR trains around in 6-10 minutes. They are treated as through stations that happen to require trains to reverse direction, generally with a change of driver. Old-fashioned terminus stations are grand buildings providing small town folk with access to a metropolis, reached after many hours or even days on the move. Thanks to high speed, even San Diego-SF-San Diego will amount to just a single eight-hour shift for employees, so in that sense SF could indeed be considered a through station along out-and-back routes originating in SoCal and Sacramento.

The Authority would be on much firmer ground if it stuck to AB3034, which point blank requires that the entire network must support headways of no less than 5 minutes. This refers to the time interval between the nose of one train and the next one running in the same direction on the same track. The technically required minimum is a function of speed and emergency braking distance at that speed. For moderate speeds, experienced operators of modern train control infrastructure can make do with as little as 2.5 minutes, so the legal target set by the bill is conservative. As will become evident shortly, the link between short headway capability and system throughput is not always straightforward.

Technical Issues and Solution Concepts

The beef that Clem/Richard Mlynarik, BruceMcF and yours truly have with the current design of the DTX tunnel is twofold:

a) at just 500 feet, the two curves in the tunnel will prevent at least the HSR trains from running them at much more than bicycle speed. In addition, we expect screeching noises as the long wheelbase trucks needed for high speed stability are dragged kicking and screaming around the corner. Passengers on board and especially, anyone present on the platforms would hear a sound reminiscent of fingernails on a blackboard, just much louder. Special lubricants might help keep both the noise and the wear and tear down, but no brand-new design should need them. The radii are also too tight for off-the-shelf Japanese shinkansen designs, which need ~925 feet. Even for European designs, 500 is the number the marketing department made the engineers sign up to, not one they'd recommend for brand-new track.

b) the slow speeds combined with the tunnel layout combined with train lengths of 660-1320 feet mean that during peak periods, inbound and outbound trains of both operators will block each others' paths to such an extent that the "throat" between the tunnel proper and the platform tracks becomes the throughput bottleneck. It's highly unlikely that HSR could achieve 5 minute headways during Caltrain's rush hour with that design.

Both post authors and commenters have propsed a wide range of solution concepts on both this blog and Clem's. Here's a recap:

• terminating some or all HSR trains at 4th & King
  
• a central rail station at Market & 7th instead of the Transbay Terminal
  
• redefining the Transbay Terminal to include a narrow two-level heavy rail station under Mission Street, reached via a short underground pedestrian passage and featuring moving walkways along the 1/2 mile concourse level
  
• keeping the tracks in the basement, but redesigning the DTX tunnel as a one-way single-track loop through the building from east to west; any future second transbay link would then be BART down Mission Street
  
• redesigning it to run up 3rd Street to increase curve radius for just two - possibly individual track - tunnels
  
• minimally, some tweaking of the curve radii and the use of curved switches in the throat of the official three-track tunnel design
  

Dedicated Single Tunnel Tracks

In the vein of this last concept, I'd like to add one more suggestion to the list. Since HSR and Caltrain are supposed to get dedicated platforms and platform tracks anyhow, I figured why not give each of them a single, dedicated track in the DTX tunnel as well. That would at least get the operators out of each others' hair. A third track should be avoided to keep the tunnel engineering as straightforward as possible so the curve radii can be increased without breaking the bank.

The idea is really quite simple: each operator sets the signals in the tunnel track to outbound and runs a group trains out in quick succession. The timetable is arranged such that an equal number of inbound trains arrives at the mouth of the tunnel just as the last of the outbound trains clears it. The operator sets the signals in the opposite direction, the platforms tracks fill up again and the process repeats.

The advantage is that as long as traffic is guaranteed to be one-way, headways as small as three minutes are quite realistic. No outbound trains blocks any inbound one, no HSR train any Caltrain and vice versa. In other words, there is no throat in the classic sense, just two independent tunnel tracks that fan out to two resp. four platform tracks that are alternately used in one direction or the other for a well-defined period of time.

The disadvantage is that each operator's timetable would feature a number of trains in quick succession, followed by a period without service in that direction. Note that in each of these groups of trains, the fastest service classes (e.g. express) come first, followed by the slower ones (e.g. semi-express). This ensures headways do not decrease below three minutes in nominal operations. For two consecutive trains of a slower class, it may go back and forth from the minimum value to a higher one.

Spreadsheet Model

To get a better sense of the kind of timetable this would produce, I made a number of assumptions and plugged them into a spreadsheet. In addition to the three-minute headways, I assumed that the cumulative delay for an outbound group of trains would be no more than one minute. For inbound groups, I allowed a three-minute buffer and assumed a two-minute dwell time for trains making a stop between San Jose and SF. Finally, I assumed Caltrain's commuter EMU equipment would traverse the 1.3mi tunnel in two minutes (39mph average speed thanks to high acceleration and short wheelbase trucks), whereas HSR trains would take three (26mph average).

For service patterns based on half-length trains (660ft or less), the first inbound train would proceed to the end of the platform track. The second would stop before colliding with the first. However, since it's a terminal station, the later arrival would have to be the first one to leave, resulting in uneven dwell times. Also, I assumed a platform track would be cleared entirely before trains from the next inbound batch are admitted. This is how an operator would use the facility during rush hour. At off-peak periods, the ends of the platform tracks can be used for parking.

The results were as follows:

• For HSR service based entirely on single trainsets, I assumed a group size of four trains occupying one track on each island platform. The first two were express, the second two semi-express trains on the SJ-SF segment. This affects the length of time the track needs to be reserved for inbound traffic. Note that I did not consider service class impacts south of San Jose for this preliminary analysis. Instead, I assumed appropriate service groups would be created via wait states in San Jose.
  
  After allowing four trains to leave, four new inbound ones would be admitted, followed by the other four trains still in the station and four inbound ones to replace them. The period for this pattern of 8 trains each way works out to exactly 60 minutes, i.e. 8 tph. The minimum dwell times for the trains in each group worked out to 38, 44, 36 and 42 minutes, respectively. Because of the buffers built into the schedule, they could be up to four minutes longer.
  
  
• I also looked at HSR service based exclusively on full-length trains. With a group size of four, this also works out to 8 tph - but each of train would now have twice as many seats! The snag is that the minimum dwell times are down to just 11, 11, 9 and 9 minutes, respectively. As discussed above, that is considered enough for a terminal in Europe. However, if a large fraction of seats is actually occupied in SF, seat reservations and some pedestrian flow control would be highly advisable to avoid delays. Evidently, trainset utilization rates are much higher if full-length trains are used. Note that it's very easy to couple and uncouple HSR trainsets at stations, so operators could transparently switch to single trainsets during off-peak hours.
  
  
• HSR service based on full-length trains and a group size of just two yielded a throughput capacity of 7.06 tph, with minimum dwell times of 21 minutes.
  
  
• Separately, I looked at Caltrain local service based on 8-car trains that would be used during rush hour. With a train group size of four, throughput worked out to a very respectable 9.23 tph. Minimum dwell times were 6, 12, 6 and 12 minutes, respectively.
  

Fiddling with the parameters, it quickly became apparent that the minimum headway had the greatest effect on throughput, followed by the time required to traverse the DTX tunnel, dwell time at through stations down the line. Doubling the cumulative buffer period allowed for inbound Caltrain groups from 3 to 6 minutes resulted in a loss of only 1 tph in throughput.

Overnight Parking

Note that CHSRA still needs a solution for overnight parking of additional trainsets, as the first ones of the day will take some time to arrive from Merced and LA. The old Brisbane yard near Bayshore Caltrain would do nicely and could double as a transshipment center for High Speed Cargo trainsets that ride piggyback on single passenger trainsets during off-peak hours. Toward the end of the day, selected passenger trains would terminate at Millbrae/SFO.

Conclusion

Provided that inbound trains are grouped neatly and operators are willing to accept that consecutive trains in the same direction may run anywhere from 3 minutes to 13, 17 or even 21 minutes apart, aggregate throughput of over 17 tph is possible with this concept. For reference, a single loop track serving all six platforms with a minimum headway of 3 minutes would support 20 tph and provide more flexibility if CHSRA and Caltrain decide on a common platform height after all.

Cost Containment Opportunity

Just for kicks, I also looked at the possibility of saving some money in phase I by extending the dedicated single track for HSR beyond 4th & King to Bayshore. Caltrain already has four short tunnels in that stretch, CHSRA intends to bore new single track tunnels to either side of that. The CHSRA web site gives a time of 13 minutes for Transbay Terminal to Millbrae/SFO, so I figured it would take about 9 out to Bayshore. This longer single-track section caused HSR throughput to decrease from from 8 to 5.71 tph (4.14 tph for full-length trains with a group size of two but minimum dwell times of 33 minutes). For the single-trainset scenario with a group size of 4, minimum dwell times went up by 12 minutes. For full-length trains with the same group size and throughput number, they were unchanged.

In other words, it would be possible to shift some tunneling overheads south of 4th & King from phase I to phase II of the overall bullet train project, given that 4.14-5.71 tph will be enough for HSR operations for a while. Note that running northbound HSR trains east of Caltrain in that section would currently force UPRR trains to cross the HSR track. By the time HSR needs dual tracks between Bayshore and 4th & King, it's entirely possible the mighty Port of SF will no longer be served by UPRR's South City Switcher - a freight train running in streetcar mode.

Quentin Kopp On Transbay Terminal

In response to yesterday morning's post on the Transbay Terminal Quentin Kopp, chairman of the California High Speed Rail Authority, called me up to chat about the project and to give his side of the story.

First, he said that there is no agreement yet on the Transbay Terminal capacity issue. The Steven T. Jones article in the Guardian shouldn't be taken to imply that any solutions have been reached. The notion of 8 trains an hour at TBT and 4 at 4th and King came from a meeting with MTC engineers, but again it's just a proposal. I asked Kopp what he thought the right solution should be and he said he needed to hear back from his engineers, and that might take up to 6 more months.

Second, Kopp explained from the CHSRA's perspective the debate over the Transbay Terminal solution. Two months ago engineers from the Transbay Joint Powers Agency, the Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board (Caltrain) and the CHSRA met to discuss the Transbay project. It was there that the engineers, without dissension, agreed that the existing design was inadequate to accommodate the 12 trains per hour that CHSRA requested.

And where did that 12 trains per hour figure come from? According to Kopp, it's based on the 2035 ridership projections in the 2008 study done by Cambridge Systematics.

Third, Kopp emphasized that the Transbay Terminal remains the CHSRA's preferred SF terminal, has been since 2006, and is of course written into Proposition 1A. Kopp does have financial concerns about the project - he quoted a cost figure of $2.8 billion. He believes that TJPA is moving too quickly on this and that CHSRA will be forced to commit some of its $9 billion HSR bond money to the project sooner than he'd prefer.

This is problematic for Kopp because of the possibility of precedent-setting. As he explained it to me, if SF gets a $2.8 billion tunnel and train station, then many other stations and cities along the route will point to that and demand that similar amounts of money be spent on their own preferred station designs and grade separation solutions. Kopp is determined to bring the project in on-time and on-budget, and doesn't want the Transbay Terminal project to suck up an undue amount of the available money at the expense of the rest of the line.

Kopp also expressed dissatisfaction with the track layout, specifically the curves of the track from 4th and King to TBT, but the above issues seem to be at the heart of his and the CHSRA's concerns.

Transbay Terminal Compromise In The Works?

That's what Steven T. Jones of the San Francisco Bay Guardian reported Friday night:

TJPA spokesperson Adam Alberti tells the Guardian that involved agencies are hoping operational adjustments can be made to handle up to eight trains per hour at Transbay, and that the additional four trains per hour that the California High-Speed Rail Authority says it wants might have to stop at the existing 4th and Townsend station.

Several commenters have floated this idea in our various Transbay posts, of having some trains go all the way to SF Transbay and others terminate at 4th and King. I'm curious which trains would stop where - won't most riders want to go all the way to the Financial District? Do we believe the typical Southern Californian* will understand the difference between SF 4th and King and SF Transbay Terminal on an HSR map, timetable, or website? Perhaps they will, and a 4th and King solution is dependent on the Central Subway - but this is probably the best solution given the politics of the matter.

Operationally, I can live with it, but as you all know by now I tend to take the big picture view of all this - I'm curious what those of you who are skilled in the details of the Transbay Terminal issue think.

Jones's article continues, still paraphrasing Adam Alberti:

He said there is a growing consensus against building a second floor of train platforms, which could add $1 billion to the price of the project. The TJPA board needs to land on a plan by May so current contracts can be issued and so regional agencies can come together on a request for about $1 billion in federal stimulus money when the state makes its formal request for federal high-speed rail funding in June.

That says to me that SF city and Caltrain officials, who have many of the TJPA seats, and the MTC are part of this "growing consensus" against the second floor concept that CHSRA has been pushing. They want to move quickly to get the contracts out and to show the feds that we really are moving on the shovel-ready aspects of the HSR project in order to get some stimulus money. I think that is exactly the right approach to take.

Of course, Quentin Kopp still isn't happy:

CHSRA Chair Quentin Kopp continues to question the Transbay Terminal project, saying its schedule and location have been dictated by its bus component and noting that its costs have been creeping ever higher. “This has all the earmarks of San Francisco’s Big Dig.”

I don't really understand what is up with Kopp's opposition to the Transbay Terminal project, but this does not reflect very well on him. It will only cause more people to think that his whole "we need a second floor for unspecified operational reasons" was in fact an effort to kill the train box idea entirely and terminate the line at 4th and King. And that may well be exactly what is going on here. But Kopp isn't doing himself or the Authority or the project any favors by his stance on this. And his use of the "Big Dig" canard is really not a good idea at all. The HSR deniers have been using that frame against us for months, and although we've done well in beating it back, the last thing we need is for an official of the CHSRA to start using it themselves. There is in fact NO indication whatsoever, at this point, that the Transbay Terminal project will be plagued by the kind of massive cost overruns that hit the Big Dig - and as many have noted, one of the reasons for those overruns was constant meddling in the design process by various authorities.

At a time when Kopp has a much bigger problem on his hands - the unrealistic demand of mid-Peninsula cities for a tunnel - he should not be going around pissing off and alienating potential allies with attacks on the Transbay Terminal project. Let's hope that this compromise is workable, that it holds, and that we can move on with the overall HSR project.

* - I was born and raised in Southern California and while I love that place dearly, not everyone there is skilled at grasping these kinds of details.

Transbay Terminal Redux

Heads Up: Neighborhood meeting on HSR for residents of the Willow Glen neighborhood in San Jose, on Wednesday, April 8 at 1292 Minnesota Ave from 7-9pm. Resources at the end of this post.

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The fair city of San Francisco has probably had more than its fair share of coverage on this blog. In just the past couple of months, we've already had quite a few posts recently on the controversial new Transbay Terminal Center (see posts 1, 2, 3). In addition, Clem Tillier has published a post on the Focus On: SF Transbay Transit Center on his Caltrain-HSR Compatibility Blog.

So why revisit this issue yet again? Well, because Quentin Kopp is once again saying that 4th & King would be good enough for him - knowing full well that this will unleash howls of protest from SF city officials and residents, in no small measure because CHSRA consistently marketed the starter line as going from downtown San Francisco to San Jose Diridon, LA Union Station and Anaheim ARTIC.

Note, however, one flaw in the snippet from the Examiner: supporting a five-minute headway on the HSR line down the peninsula is not quite the same thing as actually running a train literally every five minutes. It just means that the signaling and other technology has to cope with an HSR train following another within the space of five minutes, something that may well happen at certain times in a timetable supporting multiple service classes (e.g. express, semi-express, semi-local, local). Recovery from unexpected delays and other off-design conditions may also require operators to minimize headways at certain times. Safe operations of sections of a line with moderate speed limits are possible with as little as 2.5-3 minute headways, so 5 is actually conservative.

The number of platforms is a potential issue a number of decades down the road, maybe. On the other hand, the poor design of the connection between the DTX tunnel and the platforms, the so-called "throat", is a real issue right now because Caltrain will also use the tunnel and downtown station. It's a bottleneck even an expensive three-track tunnel cannot fully resolve. Moreover, according to Clem, the current design of the DTX tunnel features curve radii so small that they effectively preclude the use of Japanese shinkansen train designs for the California system.

Recap

The current design features 6 long platform tracks, some slightly curved, accessed via three-track tunnel out to Caltrain's existing 4th & King terminus station. The six tracks would be accessible via three island platforms, one for Caltrain and the other two for HSR. The split is partly a result of Caltrain's decision to stick with low platforms even at the Transbay Terminal, where no freight train will ever go.

The reason for the ongoing brouhaha over this one station is really quite simple. CHSRA has raised a very late red flag on the design of the DTX tunnel and train box, claiming it does not support the 12 HSR trains per hour (tph) each way that he thinks it should support, in addition to the 10tph Caltrain is hoping to run during weekday rush hour in 2025. I've argued that (a) any sane operator would anyhow choose to terminate some HSR trains further south long before reaching 12tph and, (b) that four platform tracks is anyhow enough for 12tph if you enforce some pedestrian flow control.

Tellingly, the red flag came - or rather, was shown in public - only after the Transbay Joint Powers Authority (TJPA) decided to apply directly for a slice of the HSR funds in the stimulus bill, rather than route that request through CHSRA. TJPA had previously been under the impression that 4tph would be sufficient for HSR operations. While that's true for the early years, perhaps even for several decades, CHSRA thinks its job is to deliver an infrastructure with enough capacity for the next 50, even 100 years. There is some method to that madness, as expanding a constrained downtown station decades after initial construction is usually extremely difficult/expensive or downright impossible.

While the timing suggested a political motivation, there does appear to be a real problem after all: the so-called throat, in which the six platform tracks have to converge to the smaller number in the tunnel, is very tight and by all accounts poorly designed. It constrains throughput for no good reason, Clem included a much improved version designed by Richard Mlynarik in his post.

Still, with a minimum curve radius of just 150m (~500ft), even Richard's improved version would effectively preclude the purchase of proven, off-the-shelf Japanese high speed trains - those need at least 280m, preferably more. SF real estate development should not drive HSR vendor decisions with statewide implications. To my mind, this is a red flag well worth raising - though CHSRA could and should have done so much sooner and publicly if TJPA was dismissive of this particular issue.

Station Requirements

Like any building, the aesthetics of the Transbay Terminal have their fans and their detractors. You can't argue about taste. What matters more to transportation engineers is functionality, which the current design might meet, sort of, for both CHSRA and Caltrain, but only after some modifications.

I've thought about this some more since my last post on it and have come to the following conclusion: the train portion of the design is suboptimal because planners interpreted the intent of SF voters (prop H, 1999) very narrowly as bringing the trains into the building itself. However, nobody except the developers really cares about that. IMHO, the voter intent was that the trains should stop within walking distance of the financial center, preferably also close to the bus terminal and such that an option of a second transbay tube to downtown Oakland is created.

If you subscribe to this more liberal interpretation, it is no longer essential to run tracks into the basement of the Transbay Terminal building. Rather, the focus can shift to a design that better meets the requirements of modern railway operations:

• large platform number (more than six)
  
• no platforms dedicated to any one operator
  
• all platforms full length (400m, i.e. 1/4 mile)
  
• all platforms straight
  
• all platforms level boarding (see Caveats below)
  
• high pedestrian flow capacity between trains and city streets
  
• minimum curve radius 280m (vendor flexibility, screeching noise)
  
• minimal cross-blocking of trains entering and exiting the terminus station
  
• all platform tracks run-through if second transbay tube is ever constructed
  

Train Station Under Mission Street

Fortunately, it's actually possible to meet these requirements in San Francisco, though it requires divorcing the design of the Transbay Terminal building from that of the railway station. The two would be linked via city streets, possibly a short underground pedestrian passage. If that's good enough for linking to BART and SF Muni subway, why the absolute requirement to put standard gauge trains into the basement? The upshot is that the Transbay Terminal should go ahead as planned, but without a train box or concourse level.

The following map and topology diagram show the concept I've come up with: a Central Station for San Francisco underneath Mission Street. Detailed design and construction would be far from trivial: many SF city buses use Mission to reach downtown, so tearing open that street would be quite disruptive during construction, even if it is done one block at a time. In addition, the street is quite narrow, around 85 feet including both sidewalks. That's only enough room for three tracks, two side platforms and narrow escalators/flights of stairs - which implies a lot of those would be needed to secure sufficient pedestrian flow capacity. Finally, there is almost certainly plenty of plumbing, ancient sewer mains, power mains etc. lurking underneath street level.


View Larger Map



Tunnel Route

The first thing you'll notice is that the DTX tunnel runs down 7th and Mission Streets, a very different route from the one currently proposed. I'm advocating just two tunnel tracks side-by-side, shared by non-compliant HSR and equally non-compliant Caltrain EMU trains, protected by appropriate signaling. Any legacy FRA-compliant trains need to terminate at 4th & King anyhow, since they're diesel-powered. Nevertheless, track sharing is only possible if FRA approves both Caltrain's request to switch to non-compliant EMUs and CHSRA's intent to buy proven, off-the-shelf but non-compliant bullet trains capable of cruising at 220mph.

One fringe benefit of the changed tunnel route is that no platform tracks are lost at 4th & King. Only a single 90 degree turn is required, in an area where real estate is probably less expensive than in Rincon Hill or downtown. In combination with the less complex excavation methods required for two single-track curved tunnels, this ought to permit a sufficiently generous curve radius. The map shows the maximum feasible radius of ~325m, there are various length constraints along Mission Street. A more detailed design would seek to optimize the radius as tunneling under existing buildings is expensive. Note that I have assumed the curve would be level; a helical curve would permit gradients of less than 3.5% in the vertical elevation change sections at either end.

My point is that the radius can be made large enough even for off-the-shelf Japanese high speed trains. This also eliminates any screeching noises from the long-wheelbase trucks required for stability at high speed. Crucially, it also increases station throat throughput because speed limits are proportional to the square root of curve radius. With appropriate tracks superelevation, it should be possible for outbound trains (non-tilt types) to take this corner at speeds as high as 60 mph, assuming the curve radii and speed limits for the various points along the way also have appropriate values.

The design objective should be to permit a train to pull away from any platform at maximum acceleration (~1.1 m/s^2 for Caltrain locals) and maintain that until it either hits the speed limit or has cleared the station's outer throat, i.e. the point at which tracks from the two levels converge. The minimum available distance for acceleration is about 1/2 mile, though trains on the lower platform face a 3.5% uphill climb for half that distance. Either way, any given Caltrain leaving an east platform should be able to clear the inner throat near 3rd Street within 75 seconds and the outer throat within 120. Maximum acceleration for HSR trains is more like 0.6-0.8 m/s^2 so they may take a little bit longer. Note that an incoming train may proceed past the outer throat as far as the inner one while a train is emerging from the same level; this provides a 15 second buffer.

Conclusion: as long as the curve in the access tunnel can be taken at fairly high speed, the elongated nature of the station layout does not appear to present a throughput bottleneck since the maximum time required to clear the outer throat is still less than the absolute minimum time separation imposed by the two-track access tunnel, i.e. 150 seconds at 24tph for HSR and Caltrain combined. Platform dwell times of at least 16 minutes are possible even at this insanely high level of traffic, which SF will almost certainly not attract in the next 50 years - if ever.

The downside is that the Mission Creek outfall needs to be crossed at grade, so a short section of 7th Street would lose two traffic lanes. More significantly, Townsend Street would be permanently severed at 7th unless an overpass were constructed.

Throat And Platform Layout

The second thing you'll notice is that the approach to the station is both long and straight, ideal conditions for designing a throat for minimal interference. In this case, the inbound and outbound tracks need to split into two levels that I call -2 and -3 for reasons that will be come obvious shortly. This split begins immediately east of the curved section. By the time the tracks reach Jessie St West, they need to be stacked 2x2 on top of each other. This ensures that any inbound trains waiting to reach a platform can wait west of 3rd Street on the correct level, without blocking inbound trains on the other level.

Near 3rd Street, the two tracks on each level first combine into a single track and then immediately split via a three-way point into a through track and sidings left and right of it. These sidings are the west platform tracks (2-1, 2-2 & 3-1, 3-2), each with its side platform. A second three-way point near Shaw Alley reconnects these sidings to the through track. East of this point, the through track may descend for a block to compensate for changes in the surface level (at-grade does not mean constant elevation above MSL). Regardless of length, trains always stop on the west platforms such that one end is at Shaw Alley.

A third three-way point at 1st Street provides access to two additional platform tracks east of that location (2-3, 2-4 & 3-3, 3-4). Regardless of length, trains always stop on the east platforms such that one end is at 1st Street. Space should be reserved for a future fourth three-way point reconnecting the east sidings to the through track, for reasons that will become obvious shortly.

Since there is no room for an access platform, the through track between these east sidings can only be used for train storage. Perhaps it could also be used as a tail track for the western platforms if cleaning/provisioning staff board and alight there. However, the only emergency escape route would be at Spear Street, which implies walking the length of the train first.

The layout described above means trains don't block each others' movements any more than necessary. The longest wait states would occur for an inbound train waiting for another to clear one of the east platforms, since that needs to travel up to half a mile first. At an average speed of 20mph along the center track, that would take 90 seconds. The worst-case wait state for a western platform would about a minute. In practice, well-planned operations would minimize wait states or eliminate them altogether by slowing inbound trains down rather than forcing them to come to a full stop. Worst case, there is room for one full-length train between Jessie Street West and 3rd Street.

Operationally, any given train would always stop such that one end ends up at 1st Street, within half a block of the Transbay Terminal building. In addition to supporting regional buses, the building would also contain the customer service counters for train operators, baggage depot, police station, shops, cafes, lounges/waiting areas, bicycle parking etc. Taxi and city bus stops are located on the plaza between Minna and Mission, Fremont and 1st. In other words, the concept of a multimodal hub is preserved even though the tracks are not underneath the building.

The train station would be really a bare bones affair: just the trains and access infrastructure plus some ticket vending machines and restrooms at intersections with cross streets. Mission Street isn't wide enough to accommodate any other facilities on the platform levels.

Concourse Level

Strictly speaking, there is no need for a formal concourse level at -1. Since the design uses side platforms throughput, surface streets could be used to access all of them. However, given the anticipated number of passengers, it is safer to provide pedestrian underpasses across Mission Street, even though that means digging a deeper (i.e. more expensive) trench than would otherwise be necessary. Moreover, the desire to provide four full length platforms per level means long walks are inevitable for some passengers on full-length trains. The concourse level would therefore feature moving walkways in both directions along its entire length, interrupted at the eight locations at which there are exits to the surface on both sides of Mission Street.

To either side of these central moving walkways would be regular ones, about 10 feet wide each. To either side of those would be the baggage screening areas, if Homeland Security requires any. Airport-style check-in is possible but usually (a) conductor(s) on board the train will inspect passengers' tickets. Note that security procedures are pointless unless they are implemented at all HSR stations. In any case, terrorists haven't attacked a long-distance train in Europe since Carlos the Jackal did in 1983. Instead, they've targeted subways and commuter trains as well as high speed tracks. Train stations are also at risk.

Optionally, staff could prevent passengers waiting to board from descending until they get a signal from colleagues below that all arriving passengers have cleared the platform. Unless the fire marshal requires this at all times, it would normally only be done during peak periods to avoid excessive congestion on the platforms. Note that the platforms on the two train levels would feature multiple stairs/escalators to the concourse level. Escalators intended for the disabled, women with baby strollers etc. would connect all three levels. Connections directly to the surface are ok only if Homeland Security decides it doesn't need to enforce access control to the platforms.

Pedestrian Cross Passages

A pedestrian passage underneath 1St Street between the train station and the Transbay Terminal building would not be absolutely essential but nevertheless very useful, given the vehicle traffic on the surface. Such a passage is currently planned as an optional extra between the building and Market Street, but under Fremont Street. Note that in the station design discussed in this post, the building would not need a concourse level for transportation purposes, just stairs/escalators/elevators to the pedestrian passage, if any. Moving walkways along this 200 foot stretch would be convenient for passengers and increase throughput capacity.

Additional pedestrian passages under Main and 2nd Street could connect the train station and indirectly, the Transbay Terminal building to both Embarcadero and Montgomery Street BART/SF Muni. Again, not strictly necessary but useful.

Note that all these underground pedestrian passages would provide shelter against the elements. Unfortunately, they may also attract pickpockets, buskers, alcoholics, drug addicts, graffiti artists, homeless people and others just hanging out for no apparent reason. Bright lighting, ventilation, cleaning and security patrols are needed to ensure passengers will feel safe and comfortable enough to use these facilities. It may make sense to ensure the passages are private rather than public property so security has a legal basis (trespassing) for evicting disruptive individuals.

Phasing And Extension to East Bay

What I've described above is actually the fully built out terminus station. If desired, construction could be divided into two phases to accommodate budget constraints. Phase One would be the access tunnel via 7th an Mission plus the four west platforms, possibly the pedestrian cross passages to the the Transbay Terminal building and Montgomery Street BART as well. Phase Two would be the east platforms beyond 1St Street plus the pedestrian passage to Embarcadero BART. The west platforms could already be in operation at that point.

If and when a decision is made to build a second transbay tube, the Mission Street station design affords a fairly straightforward if expensive connection via Point Alameda and into downtown Oakland up Franklin. On the SF side, the tracks should already be deep enough to avoid conflicts with the descending SF Muni subway tracks under the Embarcadero. There is enough room for the through track at level -2 to descend to level -3 between Spear Street and the water's edge. However, unlike the west throat, there is no need to double-track this new one on the east end: instead, the four platforms on the upper level would be used for inbound and the ones on the lower level for outbound trains (or vice versa). This operations change turns all eight platform tracks into run-through types, thanks to the four three-way points installed on each level.

In addition, the presence of a through track in each direction would permit trains to bypass all of the platform tracks. That could be useful for e.g. high speed cargo trains if a transshipment terminal were built in the East Bay or, for trains supporting a major sports or other event on Point Alameda or in Oakland. Normally, however, trains would dwell for a considerable amount of time in SF. Even at 24tph for HSR and Caltrain locals combined, having four platforms each way available means dwell times of close to 20 minutes would be feasible.

Caveats

I've already touched on a number of caveats, such as the consequences for 7th and Townsend Streets and, the need to pass under SF Muni tracks at the Embarcadero. In addition to those, there is a potential conflict with the planned SF Muni Central Subway. That is supposed to dive under the BART tracks at level -3 and, it looks like the chosen alignment (alternative 3B, Fig 2.12 would be deep enough at Mission Street to avoid a conflict with the alternate heavy rail access tunnel described above. However, if heavy rail station under Mission Street is considered, the clearance issue at 4th Street ought to be double-checked before ground is broken on the Central Subway. I don't have a good sense of how the surface grade changes between 4th and Embarcadero along Mission Street. The heavy rail tunnels should be level from 3rd to Shaw Alley and from 1st to Spear Street yet still deep enough to permit a concourse level plus a future extension to Oakland.

Another caveat is that passengers need to know not just the platform but also the car number of their train to descend at the appropriate point. The preferred approach is mandatory seat reservations (cp. TGV in France), the receipt can then include this information. Given the width constraints, pedestrian traffic along the platforms should be minimized. Reservations also ensure there are no standees on the train and that no-one needs to walk far inside the train to reach their seat.

Also on the receipt could be helpful hints, e.g. the nearest BART/SF Muni subway/SF Muni streetcar. Indeed, a good reservation system would ask about your connecting transportation to offer you a seat that minimizes your transfer distance. That could be printed on the receipt, along with an indication of how many minutes to budget for an comfortable transfer incl. security screening, if any. The flip side of seat reservations is that a late change to the platform, especially from one west of 1st Street to one east of it (or vice versa), would cause significant inconvenience for passengers.

Finally, I've assumed throughout that all eight platforms in the design would be created equal, i.e. that all would feature level boarding at the international standard of 3'6" (1067mm). Caltrain is hamstrung by a ridiculous 1948 rule intended to protect freight railroad workers hanging off the sides of cars. Is it really appropriate to perpetuate ye olde tyme practices to the detriment of passenger convenience and throughput capacity, in a station that no freight train will ever enter? IMHO, if Caltrain wants access to any downtown station in SF, it needs to buy EMU equipment that can cope with both level boarding and the lower level (2'1" = 639mm) that the platforms at its other stations are built to. If UPRR and CPUC have no objection, those could be upgraded to level boarding as well over time.

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Heads Up: Neighborhood meeting on HSR for residents of the Willow Glen neighborhood in San Jose, on Wednesday, April 8 at 1292 Minnesota Ave from 7-9pm.

The purpose of the project-level EIR/EIS phase is to nail down how the HSR alignment should be constructed in each location, after close consultation with the affected communities. The starting point will be what CHSRA consultants suggested for the purposes of cost estimation prior to the election. This information has been available online since 2007, though you do have to look for it. The Authority is a planning body, i.e. a bureaucratic organization - most of its documents were designed for hardcopy rather than the web.

The objective of the HSR project is to deliver a net gain for the state California, especially for the cities served by stations. The following resources may help you understand what CHSRA has done to date regarding San Jose and the Willow Glen area in particular.

Resources:

• CHSRA Google Map of implementation details used for cost estimation purposes.
  
• CHSRA Pacheco Pass implementation details such as height of structures, embankments as used for cost estimation purposes. Willow Glen is on page 4.
  
• CHSRA Station Fact Sheets, San Jose Diridon is on pp41
  
• CHSRA Various Cross Section Drawings, San Jose Diridon is on p20
  
• CHSRA Speed Limit Ranges for the route (NOTE: part of draft EIR/EIS documentation, no longer present in the final version. Possibly out of date, as Altamont Pass and East Bay sections have since been scoped out of phase I and phase II of the HSR project.)
  
• CHSRA Capital Cost Estimates for the Bay Area to Central Valley section (line item details)
  
• CHSRA Bay Area to Central Valley Final Program EIR/EIS
  
• UPRR owns the existing rail right of way between San Jose Diridon and Gilroy, Caltrain and Amtrak have trackage rights on UPRR's tracks. HSR needs land for two additional dedicated tracks, preferably adjacent to the existing ones. See our posts on How Important Is UPRR To California HSR? and Union Pacific Speaks for more information.
  
  
• How others do it: first pass analysis of alignment options and local impacts by San Mateo city planning staff, prepared for the city council
  

If you plan to attend this meeting, you may want to download selected resource documents at home and bring them along on a laptop.

Avoiding Palo Alto Altogether

While I greatly appreciate Andrew Bogan's excellent summary and comments regarding the most recent Palo Alto city council meeting, I think it's time to let the vocal minority in that town know that the state isn't going to play along with its famously drawn-out "process", in which everything gets studied until all the planners die of old age. California needs construction jobs and a new transportation artery. What it does not need is delay, so this needs to get resolved sooner rather than later.

There are alternatives. There are always alternatives, especially if you're willing to zoom out of your own back yard. I had hoped to keep the couple I've come up with under wraps to avoid distracting from plan A, but these fantasies about boring tunnels for four tracks through suburbia to preserve some supposed rustic charm are getting out of hand. In particular, Palo Alto city officials need to be disabused of the notion that they wield some kind of veto power over this state project, which is in the vanguard of a new national transportation policy.

Plan B: The Alviso Gambit

The whole tedious discussion regarding HSR through Palo Alto would of be moot if trains could stop in Redwood City, then head out to Dumbarton and use a causeway to reach Alviso (see blue line on the map below). It would be possible to thread that past two small portions of the DENWR. Perhaps US Fish & Wildlife would accept this idea if the sections nearest the boundary were enclosed to mitigate noise and other impacts on the birds. Whether environmentalists in the state and in the Bay Area would go along with that is open to question, there's the issue of methyl mercury levels in the bay mud to consider.

The next problem is that the UPRR ROW is too narrow to accommodate two HSR tracks down to SantaClara/SJC. Besides, that railroad wouldn't sell any of it even if it were. Still, it might make sense to at least consider tearing up Lafayette Street one lane at a time to obtain two individual subway tunnels for HSR tracks. This street runs right through the Golden Triangle, but mostly next to Guadaloupe creek. Trenching should not pose as serious a flood risk as it would in the mid-peninsula, but the high water table could be an issue. Vibration and other impacts during and after construction might still present major obstacles, especially if nearby chip factories are affected.

CHSRA would have to grade separate against UPRR in Alviso, probably by flying over both its tracks and CA-237. Down in Santa Clara, the alignment would have to switch to under De La Cruz Blvd, the employee/long-term parking lots at SJC, Aviation and Coleman. That's about 7 miles, though, so there would need to be an open trench section for emergency access between the Lafayette and De La Cruz sections.

Construction cost and impacts would be high, but implementing dozens of grade separations in the mid-peninsula was never going to be a picnic, either. CHSRA is currently planning a tunnel from San Tomas Expressway to SJ Diridon to avoid CEMOF and accommodate BART's desire to run at grade under I-880. The causeway alternative would get trains as far as the HP Pavilion, emerging east of the UPRR tracks just north of Diridon Station. If HSR can manage to stay on that side through south San Jose, there would be plenty of room for HSR to get out of UPRR's hair on the way down to Gilroy.

Plan C: Out Of The Fire, Into The Frying Pan

However, if UPRR or local NIMBYs block CHSRA's path through San Jose, there would be no point in pursuing Pacheco Pass any further. A much shorter causeway-cum-tunnel (cp. Øresund bridge, but on a much smaller scale) between Dumbarton and Newark would preserve the shipping lanes and avoid permanent impacts on the DENWR. Construction impacts would be significant, though, especially in light of the creosote-soaked timbers of the old rail bridge, which would almost certainly have to be removed. A tunnel-only concept from Dumbarton to Newark would also be possible, that decision should be made on the basis of cost alone.

Cargill Salt would have to be persuaded/forced to permit the construction of a low aerial structure above its still-active ponds, rising only to pass over the UPRR line. This viaduct would skirt the DENWR boundary, possibly with another enclosure section. Tracks would dive under I-880 to connect to another tunnel under CA-262, a short but busy city street in south Fremont that connects to I-680 on the other end. Residents there are no more likely to welcome construction with open arms than those in Palo Alto. However, in this case the tracks would stay in a tunnel to cross over to Calaveras Road. The active Calaveras fault would have to be crossed deep underground, which ought to give pause.

In Haynes Gulch, the tracks would run essentially at grade up to the I-680/CA-84 interchange and across via yet another tunnel to an intermodal station with the BART extension to Livermore at El Charro Road, bypassing Pleasanton to shave some time off the trip. There are some ponds at that location, not sure what they are used for - could be a problem. Burrowing under Livermore municipal airport, which is only used for general aviation, the alignment would then essentially follow the I-580 median to the Central Valley. The HSR tracks could cross UPRR/ACE, the ponds and the BART extension on an aerial, but only if the airport is turned into a parking lot.

An intermodal with BART in Fremont Warm Springs would be challenging to construct and require BART to move its station some 4000ft (~1km) south. A spur down to San Jose via the I-880 median would be possible, but that would make building ridership harder as any given train would only have a fraction of the catchment area to draw passengers from. There would be fierce opposition from San Jose, the entire Gilroy catchment area and CHSRA to any plan that would fork the starter line in the East Bay.

Any future spur up to Oakland would be substantially harder, since Caltrans will almost certainly want to retain the median north of CA-92 (San Mateo Bridge). That means cutting across to the unused ROW just west of the BART tracks at Industrial Pkwy in Union City. Light commuter rail traffic could probably squeak by there with the existing single-track ROW, but HSR would require some eminent domain against businesses. Fortunately for them, a spur up to Oakland isn't likely to happen this side of 2030.

Perhaps the biggest issue is that of SF-LA express line haul time, which AB3034 limits to 2h42m. While Altamont-via-Dumbarton is shorter than Altamont-via-SantaClara/SJC, it would nevertheless add a few minutes that have to be clawed back somewhere else. Worst case, the whole Tehachapis vs. Grapevine question would have to re-opened just to achieve the time target. That in turn would make it harder to connect Las Vegas to the network. On the plus side, service between SF and Sacramento would be time-competitive with driving, even more so for SJ-Sacramento. If CHSRA is forced to partner with BNSF in Merced and Stanislaus counties and there is an HSR station at Castle Airport (instead of Merced town) on the starter line, its catchment area would extend well beyond the Central Valley into the Bay Area, serving as a relief/complementary airport for OAK and SJC.


View Larger Map

NOTE: black lines indicate the relevant DENWR boundaries.

Consequences

Either approach would pretty much nix Dumbarton commuter rail because FRA has strict rules regarding FRA-compliant and non-compliant equipment to share track, but that's probably a survivable loss. Much more painful would be having to do a significant portion of the Bay Area to Central Valley Program EIR/EIS yet again just because Palo Alto couldn't be bothered to throw a spanner in the works at the appropriate time - basically, any time before the November election. Each year added to the schedule for planning reasons adds around 6% to estimated project cost, i.e. around $2.5 billion because of knock-on effects on phase II. That's on top of actual escalations due to more involved construction techniques. And make no mistake, dear Palo Alto NIMBYs: whatever the personal miscommunications of Messrs. Kopp and Diridon may have been, it will be you the rest of the state will blame for the resulting cost escalation if plan A falters on your account at this late juncture.

Consider for example Lodi, a small town out in the Central Valley that managed to secure a bypass for itself without a whole lot of fuss because it spoke up clearly and early. LA county persuaded CHSRA to run the route past Palmdale instead of across the Grapevine because it acted early. You had 12 years to get involved but instead - to be blunt - your elected officials chose to sit on their collective duff until just a few weeks ago. There's a time to raise a red flag and a time to accept the consequences of failing to do so. Now, it's perfectly reasonable to ask for a couple of alternatives to be priced out if the initial concept is flawed. However, it's not acceptable to expect the rest of the state and nation to pay through the nose to increase your property values while the tent cities in places like Fresno are growing larger by the day. If you want something over-and-above the norm, you're going to have to figure out a way to avoid breaking CHSRA's time and dollar budget in the process.

Note that if plan A falls through, all of the mid-peninsula cities between Redwood City and San Jose would have to fund any new grade separations of the Caltrain ROW themselves if and when commuter rail traffic reaches the high levels Caltrain is forecasting in its 2025 plan. They'd also need to pay for electrification and other improvements south of Redwood City themselves. As for the Transbay Terminal, there may not be any money left over for any HSR contributions to the DTX tunnel and the train box in phase I if CHSRA needs to switch to plan B, let alone plan C.

Conclusion

Let's hope cooler heads prevail and Palo Alto doesn't become the state's new poster child for NIMBYism, after a clear majority of its residents endorsed prop 1A. As soon as CHSRA gets its funding, HNTB needs to get cracking on affordable and acceptable solutions for sticking with the Caltrain ROW all the way to San Jose. Meanwhile, CHSRA needs to secure a ROW down to Gilroy, which means talking turkey with UPRR. Alternatives do exist, but each would create as many problems as it solves.