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.

Fear and Loathing in San Jose (Revisited)

by Rafael

Heads up #1: The Sep 12 teach-in on high speed rail organized by the Peninsula Cities Consortium has been moved to a new location due to high demand. The event is free, but anyone wishing to attend must now register at the above web site due to limited capacity. (h/t Morris Brown)

Heads up #2: The TJPA as about to hold its monthly meeting for the Citizens Advisory Committee. The agenda includes updates on ARRA funding as well as the design of the DTX tunnel and throat. The meeting is open to the general public, but if you're not a member of the CAC and plan to attend, it might be a good idea to call the TJPA at 415.597.4620 (or email info@transbaycenter.org) to check if there will be room for you. Lobbyists may have to register with the city of SF first.

Date: Tue Sep 8
Time: 3:30pm - 7:30pm
Location: TJPA offices, 201 Mission Street (at Beale), Suite 2100, San Francisco, CA, in the Large Conference Room

---

In my recent post Fear and Loathing in San Jose, I suggested that one alternative to the UPRR/Monterey Hwy corridor would be to cut over to the available 101 median via the also available 280 median. At the time, I thought an underground station and tunnel to east of the 87/280 interchange would be the only possibility.

On closer examination, I now believe a variation of this alignment might just barely be possible above ground, drastically reducing the cost while also avoiding south San Jose neighborhoods entirely. The station would still be at an angle to both Caltrain and BART, but located further north than before. Its supports would have to be positioned such that they don't interfere with the future BART tracks, which will wrap around the HP Pavilion underground en route to the future station and maintenance yard in Santa Clara. They must also avoid conflicts with the underground VTA light rail tracks. That's going to be tight. My drawing reserves about 80 feet of width for the station, that's for two tracks plus extra-generous island or side platform(s). There is no need for more than two HSR tracks at San Jose Diridon.


View SJ Diridon: HSR above ground, south via 280/101 in a larger map

The alignment would parallel UPRR's via an aerial above Montgomery St. (with double glazing sound walls) and veer east onto I-280 at the Auzerais Ave intersection. It would reach that median just west of the 87/280 interchange via a tight curve (~1000 ft radius). There is ~1600ft of run length between the Bird Ave westbound off-ramp (which trains must fly over) and the overpass from 280 east onto 87 north (which trains should pass under). At 3.5% gradient, that distance may be just enough to achieve the required elevation change of ~50 feet, factoring in the need for vertical transition curves at either end.

The curve at the 101/280 interchange is just as tight and just as gnarly. Trains would have to pass under the tall southbound overpass turnoff from 680 south onto 101 south and then immediately climb at 3.5% so they can pass over Story Rd. Again, I'm threading the needle here.

In both cases, the small curve radius coupled with the steep gradient means the achievable speeds will be quite low: assuming 5" track cant plus 7" cant deficiency, the maximum permissible speed on a curve with 1000ft radius is just 55mph. Note that current FRA rules limit track cant to just 3" but that's based on the assumption the track will be used for heavy freight trains, which is not the case here.

Since most trains will be stopping at SJ Diridon anyhow, that's primarily an issue for the SF-LA non-stop line haul time: combined with the additional 2 miles, this alignment would add 2-3 minutes. The exact penalty depends on technically feasible speeds in the 101 median vs. politically feasible ones in a ROW in the UPRR/Monterey Hwy corridor. There are ways to compensate for the penalty, e.g. straighten some curves further north. AB3034 requires CHSRA to deliver an SF-LA line haul time of 2 hours 40 minutes, which is already quite aggressive.

In south Gilroy, the least disruptive solution would be to follow 101 until it's no longer designated a freeway and then use an aerial to cut across farmland over the UPRR central coast line, twice across hwy 25 and finally across the UPPR spur to Hollister before descending back to grade following the original alignment to Pacheco Pass.


View SJ Diridon: HSR above ground, south via 280/101 in a larger map

Note: CHSRA's alignment for cost estimation purposes included a trench plus tunnel under the Caltrain tracks between San Tomas Expressway in Santa Clara and Julian St. in San Jose. I've shortened that to Taylor St. by swiping the westernmost CEMOF tracks and running at grade there. That's cheeky but Caltrain can almost certainly make do without those tracks. Bellarmine College Prep High School should not be impacted by the change.

In terms of overall cost for SJ - Gilroy, this revised alignment via I-280 and US-101 might actually be cheaper than the one CHSRA has proposed. It avoids running through numerous San Jose neighborhoods, does not rely on purchasing ROW from UPRR, avoids five grade crossings between Diridon station and Bernal Ave, avoids the existing overpass at San Carlos St. and, it avoids many additional grade crossings south of San Jose as well as aerials through the downtown areas of Morgan Hill and Gilroy and that tunnel section under CEMOF. Plus, there won't be any room for a "Grand Central of the West" station with numerous platform tracks. Two with generous platforms will do just fine, it's a through station not a terminal.

Media News Group Launches Another Anti-HSR Editorial Attack

One of the most reliably anti-HSR voices in the state is the Media News Group, publisher of several major newspapers (including the San Jose Mercury News). During the 2008 campaign they were among the most die-hard HSR deniers. Now that a judge has issued a mixed decision in the Atherton v. CHSRA lawsuit, MNG is taking advantage of the situation to yet again try and kill high speed rail:

OFTEN THERE IS a wide gap separating a concept from reality. Such is the case with California's high-speed rail project. Conceptually, fast, comfortable, fuel-efficient, intercity, passenger rail transportation makes a lot of sense as fuel prices rise and reductions in carbon dioxide emissions are mandated.

However, there are a number of inconvenient realities that come between California's dream of high-speed rail service and actually constructing it.

The latest roadblock is a court ruling that the High Speed Rail Authority's environmental impact report is "inadequate." The court's conclusion is hardly surprising considering that the EIR failed to address Union Pacific's decision not to allow the trains to run along its tracks from Gilroy to San Jose.

It never ceases to amaze me how usual standards of journalistic practice, such as they are, don't apply at all to the editorial page. The judge most assuredly did NOT rule that the EIR as a whole was "inadequate." He ruled that three specific parts of it were inadequate, but that the overwhelming majority of the contested portions were perfectly adequate, including the basic elements of the choice of the Pacheco Pass over the Altamont Pass for the HSR route. This inconvenient truth doesn't stop the MNG editorialists from plowing ahead with further bits of disinformation:

When the high-speed rail project was first proposed, supporters assumed it would use the Union Pacific's tracks. Without Union Pacific's right of way, an alternate route would have to be considered, affecting the Monterey Highway or requiring the taking of additional private property.

The ignorance here is astounding. UP's tracks were NEVER going to be used, at least not in any plans I've seen over the last two years. I can't speak for the CHSRA, but this HSR supporter never expected to use UP's ROW either. Ever since I became familiar with the situation in May 2008, I understood the plan was to use land next to UP's ROW, but not the ROW itself. Additional private property may have to be taken, but as southern Santa Clara County region is much less built up than the Peninsula, this should not require much if any loss of housing.

As a result of the court's ruling, the rail project is likely to be considerably delayed as a new EIR is written and the additional time and costs of buying land or battling Union Pacific in court are considered.

This is blind speculation almost entirely lacking in evidence. We have no indication what remedy the judge will order. A new EIR does not seem likely, and although it is a possibility, MNG has no basis whatsoever to assume it is a definite outcome. The time and cost of dealing with UP is certainly a consideration, but as I explained yesterday federal assistance can expedite this process.

Alternate routes, such as one over the Altamont Pass, which some rail advocates favor, are even more costly and also would require a new EIR.

Well, at least they got that one right. Altamont is dead. Will groups like the Planning and Conservation League finally accept that reality and devote their efforts to actually supporting HSR?

Voters approved a $9.95 billion rail bond measure last November. The rest of the money is supposed to come from the federal government and investors. Delays can only increase the costs and discourage investors.

But that is hardly the only problem with the high-speed rail project. The business plan is inadequate. There is no accurate estimate of ridership, fares, operational costs and investor interest. Also, the $40 billion cost estimate is dubious.

I see MNG decided to rehash a bunch of the old discredited HSR denier nonsense for good measure. I suppose this means that once we've discredited this editorial we can expect its claims to keep reappearing in MNG editorials for years to come?

With so many other greater capital project needs such as fixing the Delta, highway repair and school renovations that require large amounts of funding, California should sidetrack its highly questionable high-speed rail project.

This is the new line of attack against HSR, and we heard it in Menlo Park last week: that HSR isn't worth the money given all the other priorities.

The fact is we need to and can do all of these things. HSR is necessary to this state's future. To sacrifice it because we're too cheap to find money to pay for our other priorities would have been like refusing to build the Golden Gate Bridge during the Depression. That move, funded by local bonds issued in the depth of the Depression, worked out pretty damn well for California. So too will HSR. MNG will never admit it, and that's fine. We didn't need them in the campaign to pass Prop 1A, and we don't need them in the campaign to ensure that the will of the voters is respected and the HSR project built.

CHSRA and UPRR Are Talking

Whether it's a prelude to a grand bargain or not isn't clear, but Gary Richards is reporting in the Mercury News today that UPRR and the CHSRA have begun discussions about resolving the dispute over the ROW between San José and Gilroy:

Officials with the railroad and the California High Speed Rail Authority confirmed that they have held discussions in hopes of resolving their differences, which if not settled soon could cost the rail authority $3 billion in federal stimulus aid and state bond money, delay construction in Northern California and leave in doubt the electrification of Caltrain....

"Our position continues to be the same as what we've said in the past," Union Pacific spokesman Tom Lange said from Omaha, Neb. "The high speeds of these trains is simply not compatible in our right of way.

"We've had discussions with them, but the bottom line is that safety comes first and foremost."

There's been a lot of discussion in the comments about whether running HSR trains on tracks near the UPRR tracks, but not in their ROW, would pose a safety hazard of any sort. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't, but UPRR's position is clear, and with the recent ruling in Atherton v. CHSRA it's clear that the issue has to be revisited. So it is good to hear that UPRR and CHSRA are talking, but it is quite unclear what are the substance of the talks and whether or not there's any hope of forward momentum.

One problem is that the judge that issued the ruling in Atherton v. CHSRA, Michael Kenney, did not actually indicate what remedies the CHSRA must undertake to address the three specific problems with the EIR the judge found. Despite claims from Peninsula NIMBYs and HSR deniers like Richard Tolmach, the judge has not ruled that the entire EIR must be redone or that the judge found the choice of Pacheco Pass to connect the Bay Area to the Central Valley was flawed. And as Richards' article makes clear, time is of the essence:

Timing is critical — and that has some officials saying the railroad's stance is a negotiating ploy, partly because the line is lightly used. Currently, just 14 trains run each day between Gilroy and San Jose — six freight, six commuter and two Amtrak trains.

On Oct. 2, the rail authority plans to submit its application for federal stimulus money. It needs approval of those funds soon to meet Washington's requirement that construction be under way by 2012.

If the judge rules that the entire environmental study be revisited, "that could be the death knell for construction on the Peninsula," said high-speed board member Rod Diridon. "If it's a remedial action, we can deal with that."

The recent ruling may also delay Caltrain's long-range plans to expand commuter service by converting its diesel trains to electric. This would enable the agency to speed up service and run more trains more quickly. It is relying heavily on stimulus cash to bankroll the $785 million initiative, $516 million of which is still unfunded.

Some will surely quibble, as they have in recent comments, that this shows the flaws of Diridon's insistence on including the Peninsula corridor in the CHSRA application for federal HSR stimulus funds. Personally I think the CHSRA was right to be aggressive in pursuing these funds. But this does make clear that more than the old Altamont vs. Pacheco dispute is at stake here. Federal stimulus funds are necessary to get construction underway on the Peninsula - construction that, as Mike Scanlon pointed out Wednesday night, is vital to Caltrain's survival.

As I have repeatedly predicted, the parties to this lawsuit have decided it is acceptable to risk the future of passenger rail in the Bay Area - including the HSR project and the very existence of Caltrain - to pick a fight over what is a comparatively small matter. True supporters of HSR would have accepted the Pacheco choice, worked to ensure it was built properly and with respect to the environment, rather than use that choice to try and blow up the whole project.

Still, it is good to see that CHSRA and UPRR are trying to be sensible about this and are talking to each other about the matter. These discussions can take quite a long time - UPRR has been dragging its feet on selling the Davenport-Pajaro line to Santa Cruz County for over 5 years now.

Tough negotiations with freight companies are nothing new. Twenty years ago, it took more than two years of talks before Caltrain agreed to buy the San Jose-to-San Francisco tracks from Southern Pacific for $242.3 million. Talks between the Valley Transportation Authority and Union Pacific dragged on for four years before the VTA agreed in 2002 to pay $80 million to run the BART-to-San Jose extension down the UP corridor between Fremont and San Jose.

"We've negotiated with them on several acquisitions, and they are very difficult negotiators," VTA General Manager Michael Burns said. "They are a private company out to protect their interests.

"But I will be very surprised if at the end they don't reach an agreement."

This is why I believe a federal role is absolutely necessary to ensure these negotiations conclude quickly and fairly to all sides. Current federal law gives UPRR all the negotiating power, enabling a freight railroad whose operations often seem stuck in the middle of the 20th century to hold up the development of a modern 21st century passenger railroad network.

President Barack Obama has made high speed rail a key part of his administration's vision for America's future. But so far he seems to have emphasized HSR funding over the other key policy aspects of implementing HSR. Now I'm not going to complain that Obama wants to change 60 years of federal transportation policy and finally direct some real funds to HSR. And yet that's not going to be enough to ensure HSR happens.

While I recognize that it is not Obama's style to force or pressure anyone into doing anything, both the White House and the Congress - particularly California's two powerful US Senators - need to be examining ways to modernize US railroad policy and legislation. In particular they need to redress the balance of power between the freight railroads, which are essentially private contractors for the federal government and who owe their very existence to the federal government, and the state and local passenger rail systems that the federal government wishes to promote and expand.

The best way to accomplish this would be to have Senator Feinstein or Senator Boxer help mediate these conversations, potentially alongside the Secretary of Transportation or even Vice-President "Amtrak Joe" Biden. They can encourage UPRR and CHSRA to quickly come to an agreement that satisfies both sides, while letting UPRR know that if they do not come to a quick agreement, then perhaps it would be time to change federal law to help provide entities like CHSRA a more level playing field - starting with eliminating the obsolete ban on states using eminent domain on federally-chartered railroads.

That would require a greater level of leadership from California's federal representatives than we have yet seen on HSR. But it is now time for them to step up and prevent a signature project from falling into a morass.

Initial Ruling in Atherton v. CHSRA

As I wait here in Menlo Park for the HSR town hall to get underway, we have a ruling in the frivolous lawsuit Menlo Park, Atherton, and the PCL filed against the CHSRA. It's a mixed bag for everyone - the judge ruled that most of the Federal EIR on the Pacheco alignment was sound and that most of the petitioners' claims about it were "without merit."

But there were three specific points that the judge DID rule had merit:

1. EIR claim that vibration from tracks can be mitigated to a "less than significant level" is "not supported by substantial evidence"

2. EIR inadequately described land use impacts from HSR (though the judge did throw out the arguments that HSR would produce sprawl)

3. EIR needed to have been "recirculated" based on Union Pacific's refusal to share ROW in the San Jose-Gilroy corridor area.

See the ruling for yourself:

athertonvchsra

The outcome is that the "writ of mandate" the petitioners sought is granted. In practice this is likely to mean the EIR will have to be revisited to consider the three points above. Other points that the court rejected, including the argument that US-101 and I-280 needed to be considered, or that Altamont itself needs to be reconsidered, do not appear to be reopened by this ruling.

More as it develops.