San Diego Group Opposes UCSD/Downtown SD HSR Alignment

While the Peninsula NIMBYs tend to get the most attention from HSR advocates, the fact is that there are NIMBYs across California. It's not a phenomenon unique to the Bay Area. The NIMBYism we're seeing on the Peninsula is generated by a desire among those who benefited from the late 20th century model of land use to preserve that model, to oppose anything that might conceivably threaten or change that model. Despite the fact that such changes are absolutely necessary to produce economic recovery, energy independence, and environmental and climate security, for a certain segment of Californians those imperatives are less important than protecting what they've already got, exactly as it currently is.

High speed trains particularly suffer from this problem. Late 20th century California saw trains as an anachronism, and the worldview of most NIMBYs simply has no place for them. They live in an automobile world, where the idea of using high speed trains to grow city centers as denser and bigger population and job centers is fanciful. Wedded to a 20th century model of land use, they have no investment in 21st century technology. In fact, they see such technologies as an inherent threat to their worldview, and so they instinctively oppose their construction in their neighborhoods, convinced against all evidence that the way we do things right now is not only good, but can be preserved indefinitely.

Since that worldview is shared across California, it makes sense that we're going to encounter NIMBYism along much of the HSR route, no matter where it goes. And that makes it imperative that we not give in to such NIMBYism, rooted as it is in an irrational but deeply held defense of a status quo that has already failed for most Californians. Sending high speed trains to city centers, instead of stopping short of those centers, is an essential part of not just the system's overall viability, but in the project to rebuild the California Dream and provide broader economic prosperity for more people.

That's some necessary background for assessing new developments down in San Diego, where several neighborhood activists and elected officials are proposing a new but inferior alignment for HSR in the city. Instead of the line jogging westward toward UCSD and turning south to serve downtown San Diego and Lindbergh Field, they propose sending it all the way down Interstate 15 to a terminus at a football stadium:

The Interstate 15 corridor between Mira Mesa and Qualcomm Stadium would be the preferred route for the southernmost leg of California's proposed $40 billion high-speed train network, not a path that would take it through University City, a coalition of San Diego-area elected officials said today.

"A straight line is the most efficient way to get between two points," San Diego City Councilwoman Sherri Lightner said. "The meandering path that is suggested at present does not achieve that."

This "straight line" argument is becoming more and more common, even though it is complete nonsense. High speed rail means indirect routes designed to serve more people are not only still much faster than any other form of transportation, save for the airplane (which NEVER flies a straight line from runway to runway), but are more efficient at moving people within and between metropolitan areas. The primary purpose of HSR is to move people, NOT to get from Point A to Point B as fast as possible. Good HSR design will find the right balance between the two, not sacrifice one for the other.

What Lightner calls a "meandering path" is actually a path that follows the population. Hardly anyone actually lives in Mission Valley, certainly not at Qualcomm Stadium. But a LOT of people live in University City, directly across Interstate 5 from UC San Diego. And even more people either live in, or want to visit, downtown San Diego, whether for business or pleasure. (Count me as one of those people - I'll be there this weekend.)

The CHSRA map makes this clear. Qualcomm Stadium is noted by the black Q I added, near the junction of Interstates 8 and 15:



More about their proposal:

Instead of following Interstate 5, the coalition called for more study of keeping the trains on Interstate 15, past Mira Mesa to Qualcomm Stadium. The trains would then follow Interstate 805 to Tijuana's Rodriguez International Airport.

The Interstate 15 to Qualcomm Stadium route was studied by the California High Speed Rail Authority, but was largely dismissed because it doesn't end up in downtown San Diego or link up with Lindbergh Field.

San Diego City Councilwoman Donna Frye said environmental and community concerns over the the proposed route through University City have not been adequately addressed.

"The Rail Authority map showing the Carroll Canyon and Miramar Road routes are imprecise," she said. "They offer little clue to their potential impact to Rose Canyon and other sensitive areas."

This is really unfortunate framing coming from Frye, who should have been elected mayor of San Diego in 2005. Either she's deliberately misleading the public, or simply doesn't understand how planning works. Of course the CHSRA map is imprecise - the entire purpose of the current scoping process is to get public input on what the specific route should be, and examine the impact on the canyon.

What Frye, Lightner and others are really saying is that they think HSR is going to disturb the existing land use patterns and aesthetics of University City, and they would prefer that not even be considered. Instead of finding a way to make HSR work, they basically propose dumping passengers in an empty parking lot. Sure, the Q has a trolley station, but downtown San Diego is the central hub of all of the SD Trolley lines:



What they propose is essentially forcing intercity travelers to transfer to light rail at the Q to make it to their downtown destinations. That's even more inferior and impractical than making people transfer to Caltrain at Diridon Station to continue the journey to downtown San Francisco. If you have luggage, you're screwed, and the extra time on a much slower light rail train would make the overall travel time from downtown LA to downtown SD much less desirable.

Further, you're giving up a huge number of riders who would be using the train to/from downtown SD, including the University City/UCSD stop - a part of the city of San Diego that currently has no passenger rail service.

The CHSRA dutifully said they welcomed the feedback and would look at the proposal. Which is what they ought to do. Hopefully they'll reach the same conclusion they did before, which is that the Qualcomm Stadium terminus is inferior and impractical.

In the meantime, let's hope more San Diegans get engaged in the process, letting their elected officials know they support a train that will serve populations where they already are, instead of empty parking lots.

UPDATE: Matthew Fedder posted in the comments a letter he wrote to Lightner and Frye, and I thought it worth excerpting here, as he makes the environmental case FOR the University City/downtown alignment:

The purpose of having stops in UTC and Downtown is to support transit-oriented development in San Diego. In other words, bring the transit conveyances to where people live. And there are no more dense centers of population in San Diego than UTC and Downtown.

The Qualcomm parking lot is a no-mans land, the poster-child for automobile-based, sprawl-oriented development, with only one trolley line to serve as an oil-free, environmentally friendly alternative to get San Diegans in, and visitors out. It also happens to be a parcel of land that is expected to be completely re-worked in the near future - a project which, ironically, Counceilor Frye has opposed on the basis of the additional car-trips it will add to Mission Valley. You think think that's bad? Imagine 48,000 boardings and de-boardings a day in a location with almost no connection to public transit.

Exactly. Dropping passengers in the Qualcomm parking lot would be a cruel joke, a sign that San Diego isn't willing to truly embrace sustainable transportation or smart growth principles.

Altamont Corridor Planning Begins

As mandated by Proposition 1A, the California High Speed Rail Authority is beginning its process of studying the Altamont Corridor alignment. Have a look at their announcement newsletter for some details.

The project corridor is defined as San José to Stockton, with a possible spur to Modesto:



As you can tell, this is basically an upgrade and electrification of the Altamont Commuter Express - the full newsletter includes drawings of electric ACE trains traveling along a high speed rail corridor with overhead wires. The projection is that Stockton will be anywhere from 55 to 75 minutes from downtown San José once the corridor is completed, with trains operating at 150 mph or greater.

And the explanation given on the newsletter of the project's scope and goals:

The Altamont Corridor Rail Project will provide a vital link in the regional transit network, connecting our communities like never before. The project will create a dedicated passenger train corridor between Stockton and San Jose, with stops in key cities in between. A spur link to Modesto is also a possibility. The project study area is shown to the right, along with opportunities for strategic intercity rail connectivity. Specific route alignments and station locations will be identified through a community-based planning process. Once developed, alternative scenarios will be evaluated through the preparation of an Environmental Impact Statement/Environmental Impact Report.

The project could allow operation of trains between the Bay Area and points north including Stockton and Sacramento, as well as points south including Modesto and beyond, within the California High-Speed Train system. The project will provide intermodal connections to Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) to serve the Oakland Airport, cities of Oakland and San Francisco, as well as other Bay Area communities. Intermodal connections to BART could be located in the Livermore vicinity, should the Dublin/Pleasanton BART line be extended, as well as in the Fremont/Union City area, meeting either the Fremont line or planned Warm Springs/San Jose extension.

The Altamont Corridor Rail Project could also accommodate a future connection to the Dumbarton rail service in the Fremont/Union City area, as well as connect to the Valley Transportation Authority light rail in Santa Clara County. The project will coordinate with local bus services, providing access to proximate market areas and interfacing with regional bus links where appropriate. Whether for intercity trips, daily commutes, or access to the statewide High-Speed Train system, the Altamont Corridor Rail Project will serve our communities like never before!

My own view is that while faster ACE trains would be nice, this really isn't as high a priority for the state as upgrading the Capitol Corridor, restoring the Coast Daylight service along the Central Coast, and upgrading and speeding up the Pacific Surfliners, to name but a few projects more deserving. The inclusion of the Altamont Corridor in Prop 1A was a sop to Assemblywoman Cathleen Galgiani and interests in San Joaquin and Stanislaus Counties to compensate for the choice of the Pacheco Pass route for the main HSR trains.

I don't have much of a preference about the implementation on the route, though we will predictably hear from residents in Fremont and Pleasanton concerned about the impact on their neighborhoods. And while it'll be nice to throw that in the faces of the people suing because the Altamont alignment was rejected for the main HSR trains, I'm not entirely sure what the Altamont high speed corridor project gets us. It doesn't deserve to be funded ahead of other higher priority corridors. I'm all for improved passenger rail and I wish the CHSRA and its corridor partners well in the development of a sensible plan, but if this never got funded, well, that's an outcome I could live with.

The scoping meeting schedule is below. All meetings are from 3PM to 8PM.

Livermore - Tuesday, Nov. 10
Robert Livermore Community Center
4444 East Avenue

Stockton - Thursday, Nov. 12
San Joaquin Council of Governments
555 E. Weber Avenue

Fremont - Tuesday, Nov. 17
Fremont Teen Center
39770 Paseo Padre Parkway

San José - Wednesday, Nov. 18
Le Petit Trianon Theatre
72 North Fifth Street

LA to SD Scoping Meetings

CHSRA is hosting a number of scoping meeting down in Southern California this month - click that link to see the full details (PDF link). In advance of the LA County meetings, which kick off tomorrow night in Monterey Park, Streetsblog LA offers a primer on the LA-SD route:

I'm sure some are curious why the CHSRA choose to connect Los Angeles and San Diego via the Inland Empire instead of the more direct routing along the coast. From my years following this project I'll offer my cliffnotes on why this is so.

There are a number of obstacles to using the coastal corridor. The right of way in some places is narrow and also traverses environmentally sensitive areas. As the faq "How is this project different from other previous attempts to implement high-speed train systems in the U.S.?" on the CHSRA website notes:

The California High-Speed Rail Authority (Authority) considered but rejected a coastal alignment between Los Angeles and San Diego as part of its certified Statewide Program EIR/EIS (November 2005). The Authority concluded that limited existing right-of-way and sensitive coastal resources made high-speed train service on the coastal rail corridor infeasible. You can read more on the routing choices at the CAHSR's Frequently Asked Questions page.

Another factor is opposition from the coastal communities of Southern Orange County and Northern San Diego County. While cities like Anaheim and Irvine are eager to be part of the system, communities along the coast further south are hotbeds of NIMBY pushback (e.g. San Juan Capistrano and Encinitas). That is why the spur line serving Orange County goes no further South than Irvine. Plus the folks in the Inland Empire want the project to serve their region and have been actively lobbying for it to do so during the past decade. Similar lobbying by Palmdale and Lancaster is the reason why the project goes through the Antelope Valley instead of along the grapevine/I-5 corridor to reach L.A. from the Central Valley.

I would add some things to this. The issue isn't so much NIMBY pushback - that isn't stopping CHSRA elsewhere, nor would it be appropriate for it to do so - but the extreme difficulty of engineering tracks in this area. The tracks between LA and SD currently hug the coast through Capistrano Beach and San Clemente, squeezed between the beach and the bluffs. Those bluffs frequently come down onto the tracks in years of heavy rain, the most recent example I know of being in 1998. It's really not a good place for high speed trains.

The only real alternative along the coast is Interstate 5. But this is even less workable than the coast. I-5 is extremely hilly through much of the section from San Clemente southward (Camp Pendleton being less so). It also has some tight curves that make it additionally unsuitable for an HSR route.

Combined with the larger population along the Ontario-Escondido inland alignment, those engineering concerns made the Inland Empire alignment more viable. And yet it's not without questions - such as what will they do now that the I-15 ROW between Escondido and San Diego has been used up by Caltrans? Another is whether the trains will travel along the I-15 or the I-215 alignment in southern Riverside County. At one of these scoping meetings, yesterday in Murrieta, that issue came up, along with some of the now-standard NIMBY concerns:

Murrieta has been targeted for a station stop in an area near the intersection of the two freeways often referred to as the Golden Triangle.

Officials in the southwest Riverside County city see the station as a potential boon -- possibly a catalyst for commercial development and job growth.

As one of the most auto-dependent locations in a deeply auto-dependent region, Murrieta will derive quite a bit of benefit from having an HSR station, making travel to job centers to the north, northwest, and the south more feasible and affordable.

The issue of alignment was discussed:

Determining which freeway the train will parallel will be part of a lengthy environmental study that begins with the public comments fielded at the scoping sessions, said Jose Martinez, project manager for the Southern California line.

Each route has benefits and drawbacks. The terrain along I-215 is flatter and could allow the train to pass through both county seats. But the I-15 route is shorter and has more available land, said Rick Simon, a project engineer.

The I-215 route does include the ability to generate riders from Riverside, Moreno Valley, and San Bernardino/Redlands, whereas the I-15 route would be quicker from LA to SD but would not generate ridership from many of those cities.

And of course, the usual "omg this will cost too much!" folks came out:

Not everyone was supportive. Murrieta mother and son Ken and Louise Appel said they didn't believe that the benefits of the rail line -- shorter commutes and less dependence on foreign oil -- outweigh the costs -- more noise and the estimated $45 billion price tag for the entire system.

Which of course only makes sense if you assume there is no cost whatsoever to continuing the present model of transportation, which involves massive amounts of sprawl subsidized by everyone else in California. In other words, status quo. America has done a very good job of making those costs seem not only normal, but hidden, even nonexistent. So we who support HSR look like the ones wanting to just throw around money, even though opponents are actually the ones proposing a profligate strategy that, as we have learned with this recession, doesn't actually work for most people.

What To Do In Willow Glen?

UPDATE: Note that in fact the tracks from Diridon Station to a point called "Lick" 3 miles south, about where the tracks reach Monterey Highway, are owned by the Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board (PCJPB), as Rafael pointed out in the comments. I've updated the post to reflect that info.

This weekend Peninsula residents are gathering at the Palo Alto Sheraton to discuss possible designs for the Caltrain/HSR project through Menlo Park, Atherton, and Palo Alto. I'm going to have to miss this event, but it's worth noting their task is significantly easier than the much more complicated and difficult question of HSR implementation just a few miles down the tracks in San José.

The Willow Glen and Gardner neighborhoods, located in the heart of the Silicon Valley, are wrestling with the question of how to implement HSR through their communities. Like their neighbors on the Peninsula, they too have an existing railroad running through their community, which as on the Peninsula predated the homes.

But unlike the Peninsula, Willow Glen and Gardner in particular have other major transportation systems impacting and dividing their neighborhoods. I-280 and the CA-87 freeways have already cut through significant portions of both areas. These neighborhoods also lie in the flight path of Mineta San Jose Airport, whose runways are located about 2 miles or so to the north, meaning there is significant aircraft noise in this neighborhood.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the existing tracks south of Diridon Station a point 3 miles south of Diridon called "Lick" (thanks to Rafael for the clairification), currently used by a few Caltrains to/from Gilroy and the twice-daily Coast Starlight, are owned by the Union Pacific Railroad. The ROW through the Gardner neighborhood appears to be wide enough to accommodate four tracks, including the existing two that comprise the northern end of the UPRR Coast Line. Of course, as we know, UPRR is not in a mood to actually share that ROW. And that causes a significant problem for both HSR planners and the surrounding neighborhood. (Again, noting the correction above, the segment through the Gardner neighborhood is indeed owned by PCJPB.)


View Willow Glen/Gardner in a larger map

That's why the CHSRA is hosting a community meeting at the Gardner Community Center Tuesday, October 6 from 6 to 8pm to discuss the issue. As the Mercury News explains it, the popular proposal in Gardner and Willow Glen is to move the tracks to Highway 87:

Residents of Willow Glen and the Greater Gardner area including David Dearborn, Jean Dresden, Michelle Harris and Harvey Darnell submitted pages of questions for the "scoping" document that will set the parameters of the draft environmental impact report.

Dresden and Dearborn — who has worked in technical fields for 30 years — drafted a plan called "Thread The Needle," which describes in detail how the rail line could trace Highway 87 through the Interstate 280 interchange. It would run underground in the Delmas Park area to the Diridon train station.

Rail leaders say perhaps a compatible option would be to replace the Valley Transportation Authority's light-rail line along Highway 87 with a high-speed line, although it is unclear if the VTA would allow it.

I'd love to see this plan, which I could not find online, because I'm quite curious about how this would work in practice. Moreover, I'm also quite curious about how the hell VTA would continue light rail service on the Santa Teresa and Almaden lines if their median tracks in Highway 87 are taken, even if just for the few miles between Curtner Ave and the 280 interchange. VTA light rail is a "struggling" system, but as Yonah Freemark at The Transport Politic noted, better land use policy in the Silicon Valley would help make the system much more effective. The "Thread the Needle" plan seems to suggest abandoning light rail along the Highway 87 corridor almost entirely (which is one reason I want to see the actual plan). You can't actually widen the Highway 87 to accommodate both HSR and light rail tracks, since to do so you'd have to encroach on the same UPRR ROW tracks that is causing issues for HSR planners even if they leave light rail where it is.

Neighborhood residents say they support the HSR project, even though they exhibit the same errant thinking about the place of rails in communities as some folks on the Peninsula:

Michelle Harris, a 48-year-old Cisco engineer who lives on Fuller Avenue, said many people in the Gardner area want the route moved to Highway 87.

"In older neighborhoods, the Caltrain tracks go through quaint parts of town. Putting a 200 mph train through it is kind of like putting a freeway through it," Harris said.

Harris, the secretary of the North Willow Glen Neighborhood Association, also said that many neighbors support the rail project and voted for Proposition 1A in 2008. They want to be close to a train station that would take them to other cities, she said.

As you can tell, the problem here is that Harris has it backwards - the neighborhood "goes through" the rail corridor, which was there before the houses. But what about the "200 mph train" - is that actually what would be implemented in the neighborhood (and even if it were, wouldn't the noise be FAR less than that of the two existing freeways and certainly less than the existing Caltrains)?

Rail leaders have said in public meetings that trains would travel about 60 mph if they negotiated the curves of the Caltrain line through the Gardner area, but they did not deny that noise and vibration would be issues unless soundwalls or tunnels were built.

Notice, of course, that saying noise and vibration would be "issues" isn't the same as saying they'd impact the neighborhood the same way as a freeway would.

In the end, the real issue here is UPRR. Running HSR trains through Gardner at 60 mph on the existing tracks (it's just beyond Diridon Station, so you have to assume trains were never going to be running a whole lot faster than that) would be a perfectly sensible solution that would cause the minimum impact on the community. But since UPRR refuses to allow that their ROW (south of Lick) to be used, something else is going to have to be done explored - hence CHSRA's willingness to explore the "Thread the Needle" idea, as problematic as that is.

Here again I renew my call for California's federal representatives to get involved. As the only body with the ability to actually push UPRR to be more willing to share its ROW. As a creation of the US government, with much of its land and ROW given to it freely by the government, UPRR should be more willing to find a reasonable accommodation with the HSR project.

Tehachapi Residents Excited About HSR

Last week the California High Speed Rail Authority took its scoping meeting roadshow to Tehachapi, and judging by this report in the Tehachapi news the locals are excited and supportive - but they'd also like a stop:

“I believe in alternative transportation,” said architect Alex Kosich at the Sept. 16 meeting at the Stallion Springs Community Center. “I rode my bike six miles to this meeting.

“I think it's great. I think it's wonderful. It's a big engineering task. We have to start somewhere.”

Kosich said he and his wife Laila, who is French, are accustomed to riding the high-speed trains from Paris to Lyon.

“Why isn't there one here?” Kosich said. “What are we waiting for?”

The article includes some critical voices, including one guy who voted against the train out of financial concerns.

One of the main concerns raised was the possible impact of the train on a new hospital being built in Tehachapi, though project managers said that the tracks would be sited in such a way to avoid negative impacts. And this being Tehachapi, the article included a brief discussion of the famous Tehachapi Loop, one of the reasons there is currently no passenger rail service between Bakersfield and Los Angeles:

While the rail line in the Tehachapi Pass will follow the BNSF line, there will be no loop similar to the famous Tehachapi Loop at Keene that has been in use since it was built in 1876 and draws railfans from around the world.

With better technology, railroads do not need to adhere to the 2.2 percent grade restriction dictated by Abraham Lincoln's Pacific Railway Act of 1864.

“We can go steeper, to 3 and one-half percent,” said Roworth, the engineer.

In any case, he said after a moment of calculation, at 220 miles an hour, the train would need a circle 16 miles in diameter to make a loop.

Of course, whenever the Tehachapi Pass/Palmdale alignment comes up, we get commenters coming out of the woodwork to argue that this alignment is flawed, too costly, a sop to developers, etc. Never mind the fact that 500,000 people live in the area, a number projected to rise to 1 million by 2020 with or without HSR. The key factor in picking the Tehachapi alignment over I-5 is that, as anyone who has actually driven I-5 through the Grapevine knows, the I-5 route is very mountainous, whereas the Tehachapi Pass is much less so. The CHSRA reached that conclusion over 5 years ago when it eliminated the I-5 route as too challenging and costly for the significant amount of tunneling that would be required to serve that route - a route that wouldn't include any new riders.

Bakersfield Gets A Look At the High Speed Train

The CHSRA is taking their scoping meetings to the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley this week, including a stop in Bakersfield:

As a structural engineer, longtime Bakersfield resident Ed Creswell is thrilled that America's first bullet trains will fly right through his city's downtown district.

"It's a great project," he said. "And I'm excited for our community."

But for Ed, his wife Judy and some of their neighbors there's also a downside: The 220-mph electric rail line is being routed right through his Rosedale-area neighborhood on an elevated track 30- to 40-feet off the ground. And that will affect property values and the quality of life in their horse-friendly tract.

"A lot of families have been out there 35 to 40 years or more," Creswell said. "They're not really anxious to move."

The article doesn't tell us what the Creswells came away from the meeting thinking about the HSR project. Obviously there are residents in Bakersfield who, as in Santa Fe Springs and Palo Alto, to name just a few cities, are wondering how to strike a balance between their desire for HSR and their concerns about how it will impact their communities. I am sure there will be some NIMBYs reading this saying "HA! See, it's not just us folks that are upset about this" - but that would be missing the point of a Bakersfield newspaper's anecdote of ONE homeowner who doesn't seem to be espousing any NIMBY ideas at all.

The rest of the article does a pretty poor job of informing readers about the route and the outstanding decisions left to be made. It does include this colorful quote from CHSRA regional director Carrie Bowen:

While there will be some noise associated with these rolling bullets, there will be no rattling, no clackety-clack of rail noise -- and the on-board ride will be so smooth, you won't spill your beer while walking back to your seat, Bowen said.

All I know is that on the first SF to Anaheim trip circa 2020 - and I fully intend to be on that first train - I'm going to have so much champagne I don't know if I will even be able to stand.

The Bakersfield Californian also had an interesting op-ed from Danny Gilmore, a Republican member of the CA Assembly (who won his seat last November in an extremely close and contentious race). Gilmore expresses strong support for HSR:

Moreover, as California and the state both grapple with a struggling economy, it is important to respond to the areas of greatest need when opportunities for employing our workforce exist. The Central Valley has the highest unemployment rates in the state with areas experiencing a staggering 40 percent of people without jobs. These are not the unwilling or unfit to work, these are former farm workers, mechanics, construction workers and others who have the skills, ability and desire to work.

The Depression-era reality for many rural communities of the Central Valley showcases the greatest need for new jobs that will help buttress the state and local economy as well as put people back to work.

The Central Valley has experienced hardships unlike anywhere else in the state. Restrictions on water to our farms, a crippled dairy economy and the ripple effect of high unemployment and businesses closing their doors have made the Central Valley the epicenter of this recession. When you pair the logic of starting this project, with the Bakersfield to Merced corridor, and the great need for such a project in these areas, the choice to do so in the Central Valley is a clear win-win.

I urge the Federal Rail Authority to award funding to the Bakersfield to Merced corridor as the best option for bringing high-speed rail to fruition in California. I hope that they also see that the intent of this funding is to address the need for good jobs in areas that are struggling to survive.

Kudos to Gilmore for understanding what too few of his fellow Republicans grasp: that federal spending is absolutely necessary to deal with this severe recession, and that HSR is as good a project as any to deliver those jobs.

CHSRA is hosting two more scoping meetings for the Bakersfield-Palmdale segment:

Tehachapi
September 16, 3:00-7:00 p.m.
Stallion Springs Community Center
27850 Stallion Springs Dr.
Tehachapi, CA 93561

Palmdale
September 17, 3:00-7:00 p.m.
Chimbole Cultural Center
38350 Sierra Highway
Palmdale, CA 93550

ARTIC Designs Unveiled

The design proposal for the Anaheim Regional Transportation Intermodal Center (ARTIC), which will be the southern terminus of the HSR route (at least until the San Diego line is built), was released recently. The image above is of the station, which will be wedged in between the Santa Ana River and the 57 freeway just across from Angels Stadium and the Honda Center (formerly The Pond). HOK Los Angeles and Parsons Brinkerhoff are the designers and builders for the ARTIC project. According to the release, the building will be of a sustainable design and will aim to receive a LEED Platinum certification, currently the highest rating for sustainable building.

The release also notes that the ARTIC design is modeled in part on the blimp hangars at the old MCAS Tustin. Which I have to say I find a bit unusual and not exactly inspiring. I never really understood the attraction some people had to the blimp hangars (the hangars at Moffett Field in Sunnyvale are exact copies of the Tustin hangars, for you Bay Area folks). Having grown up in Tustin, and having had several opportunities to take extensive tours of the hangars, I always thought they looked like rather ugly blights on the landscape that should have been torn down once the Marine Corps and US Navy stopped using blimps in the 1950s. (Apparently the hangars made good storage space for helicopters, which is why they were preserved.)

One of my favorite train stations is located just down the road in Santa Ana. I'm a sucker for the Mission Revival style, and that would seem to be more fitting for an Orange County HSR station. The Old Orange County Courthouse, which isn't Mission Revival but is still a great bit of 19th century architecture, would also make a good basis for ARTIC. At minimum there should be some orange trees around the station, to mark Anaheim's history and especially given how few orange trees are actually left in the county.

These criticisms should not be taken as a criticism of the ARTIC project itself. It's a long overdue and welcome project to improve the woefully inadequate existing Anaheim station (located in the parking lot of Angels Stadium), providing a centrally located place for trains, buses and pedestrians to meet.

OCTA is hosting a scoping meeting for ARTIC next Thursday, July 30, from 5 to 7 pm at OCTA HQ on 600 S. Main Street in Orange. You can submit comments online if you can't attend the meeting in-person.

Tren de Alta Velocidad en San José

Several Spanish-speaking residents of the Gardner/Willow Glen neighborhood in San José are circulating a petition asking the California High Speed Rail Authority to extend the comment deadline for the SJ-Merced project level EIR/EIS:

A group of Willow Glen residents who say Spanish-speakers were not properly notified of community meetings about the high-speed rail slated to cut through their neighborhood has been going door to door collecting signatures to temporarily stop the plan from moving forward.

"The Spanish-speaking community knows nothing about this; they have been neglected," said Dee Urista, who lives in the Gardner neighborhood, where there is a high number of Spanish-speaking residents....

She and others in her neighborhood say they were never notified of the community meetings in Spanish and haven't had the opportunity to submit their concerns about the project, which is slated to bring California's 800-mile high-speed rail line through the Gardner neighborhood.

The deadline for submitting questions for the environmental impact report is set to close April 10.

The CHSRA's public outreach manager claims they have offered translation services and a phone number for Spanish-language residents. I am sure they feel they've done the right thing on outreach, and I don't see any cause for claims that they deliberately tried to cut out Spanish-speaking residents, but the CHSRA should grant both requests - extend the comment time AND hold a bilingual meeting in San José.

The CHSRA extended the comment period for an entire month along the Peninsula, which was also the right move. The Authority needs to emphasize openness and public outreach to the entire state, and in California that's just not possible without Spanish language outreach.

Further, the Willow Glen neighborhood's request is reasonable. They're not coming at this from a NIMBY position (at least not as quoted in the article) and it would go a long way toward building goodwill in that community for the CHSRA to hold a Spanish language scoping meeting.

Sunday Open Thread: Central Valley + Sunnyvale

UPDATE: The Fresno Bee reports that CHSRA is hosting additional scoping meetings for the project-level EIR/EIS process.

Tuesday, March 24, 3-7pm: Visalia Convention Center
Wednesday, March 25, 3-7pm: Fresno Convention Center Exhibit Hall

If you're planning to attend, the following questions need answers IMHO:
a) where is CHSRA at in ROW negotiations with BNSF for south Fresno - Bakersfield?
b) where is CHSRA at in ROW negotiations with UPRR for south Fresno - Merced (- Stockton)?
c) how fast does CHSRA intend to run HSR express trains (SF-SJ-LA-Anaheim stops only) in the Central Valley, specifically in the downtown areas of Fresno, Bakersfield and smaller towns along the way?
d) is CHSRA considering noise mitigation measures to support those speeds and, how effective are those at the speeds express trains will run at in the Central Valley?
e) if UPRR is not willing to share or part with its ROW through Fresno, has any thought been given to a western bypass - through farmland - for both HSR and BNSF/Amtrak San Joaquin?

As part of any such a grand bargain, the city/county of Fresno would need to commit to operating a new DMU-based light rail service ("Fresno Flyer", cp. NCTD Sprinter and SMART) on the current BNSF alignment through downtown. This Flyer would connect to both a North Fresno station near Gregg (also serving Madera via connecting regional buses) and a South Fresno station near Bowles (also serving Hanford-Visalia-Tulare, also via buses). Any HSR train that was due to stop in Fresno anyhow would then stop instead at one of these "beet field" stations - but not the other. BNSF's Calwa yard would be used for the new Flyer service and a new one built for BNSF's freight operations at a suitable location elsewhere - not a trivial decision for BNSF.

The trade-off would be between a downtown HSR station + speed/noise issues related to express trains vs. "beet field" stations serving a larger area + a starter line for regional rail transit.

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We haven't had an open thread in a while. After yesterday's discussion of HSR in Merced county, I'd be interested in how folks in Bakersfield think about this project. The HSR station will be intermodal with Amtrak San Joaquin (the links off the Amtrak California web page are broken). The Bakersfield Amtrak station is currently at S St/16th St, even if Google Maps thinks it's further west. Given the city's population of around 250k, only a subset of HSR trains is expected to stop there. That probably means four tracks plus one island or two side platforms dedicated to HSR, in addition to whatever Amtrak's FRA-compliant trains need. Pedestrians/cyclists would use one or more over- or underpasses to cross the entire ROW or access any of the platforms.

What about HSR express trains that are supposed to run through there at close to 200mph? Is that correct and acceptable to Bakersfield residents?

For details of the route and the implementation options selected for cost estimation, please zoom in on CHSRA's Google Map of preferred HSR route. A combination of at-grade and aerial sections is indicated for Bakersfield. Note that noise mitigation measures were not included in the original cost estimates, sound walls typically cost on the order of $1-$1.5 million per mile.

Bakersfield rail yards and Kern river crossing (low quality):

View this video on YouTube

Near Wasco:

View this video on YouTube

Central Valley overview (High Definition):

View this video on YouTube

Originals of videos on CHSRA web site.

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HEADS UP: the San Jose Mercury News has announced a CHSRA project-level EIR/EIS scoping meeting for SUNNYVALE, intended for city officials but open to the public.

Date: Tuesday, March 24 @ 6pm
Location: City Hall conference room, 456 W Olive, Sunnyvale

If you're planning to attend, you may want to prepare by looking at the following:

• Google Map of preferred route showing the implementation options used for cost estimation, please zoom in. North Sunnyvale: embankment, south Sunnyvale: at grade
  
  
• Cost estimation basis for HSR implementation in Caltrain corridor. Dated 5 Apr 2007 and marked as preliminary and subject to change. Sunnyvale section is on page 8.
  
  
  
  • North Sunnyvale: 3.7m (~12ft) retained fill embankment, i.e. solid walls with earth in-between, shallow underpasses for the cross-roads.
    
    
  • Transition: 3% grade, probably more than UPRR freight trains can handle. After the merger with SP, Union Pacific now has an easement for the Caltrain ROW and also a say if other railroads get to operate freight and intercity passenger services on it.
    
    
  • South sunnyvale: at-grade, no details yet on grade separation recommendation for Sunnyvale Ave. The other cross roads in south Sunnyvale already have over- or underpasses, double-check if they will present problems for expansion to four tracks.
    
    
  • Please ask if HSR will use the inside or the outside tracks. How will that decision impact the Caltrain stations, which may need longer platforms (e.g. 1000ft) to make full use of the two platforms at the new Transbay Terminal in San Francisco? What about anticipated noise levels and mitigation measures in Sunnyvale?
    
  
  
• Selected cross-section drawings of the cost estimation basis.
  

For background information on the project, please refer to the other appendices of the Bay Area to Central Valley Final Program EIR/EIS.

Additional information regarding Caltrain ROW width in Sunnyvale is here, maps 37-TCCM-200-B.pdf through 41-TCCM-200-B.pdf. The minimum width for four tracks is 75 feet. At Caltrain-only stations, 95-100 feet are required to also accommodate two side or one island platform, as the case may be.

Note that full grade separation at stations implies one or more pedestrian over- or underpass(es) to cross the ROW and access the Caltrain platform(s), even if HSR trains will never stop there. The number of passages depends on platform length and expected boardings/alightings, forecast data that Caltrain would have to provide. Afaik, ramps or elevators for ADA access are required by law for new construction, this may entail the acquisition of some additional ROW width.

Btw, grooves for bicycles next to stairs are very useful features in pedestrian over-/underpasses at stations:



If you decide to attend and write up a short summary of the salient clarifications and yet-to-be-resolved issues for Sunnyvale, you may want to send a copy to Robert Cruickshank who owns this blog.