As the HSRA is currently conducting planning and engineering studies for high speed rail on the Peninsula, the communities along the corridor are proposing many alternatives in hopes of reducing the impact resulted from the project. This is not surprising, partly because high speed rail is a new form of transportation for California and because HSRA has not been transparent with the public regarding its decision making process.

One of the alternatives suggested is to build high speed rail between Southern California and San Jose. Under that scenario, high speed rail riders would transfer to Caltrain heading to San Francisco. This alternative is opposed by San Francisco, which has been planning a new “Grand Central Station” at the current Transbay Terminal site since 2001. A Deputy Attorney General also issued a statement advising that ending HSR in San Jose would not be permitted under Proposition 1A.

Despite our differences with the HSRA, BayRail Alliance supports high speed rail service to San Francisco because the city has the highest population and employment density in the region. It also has a vastly better transit access to the East Bay and North Bay via BART, buses, and ferries. It is also important to note that Proposition 1A was passed by a higher margin in San Francisco than any other region in the Bay Area.

By sharing infrastructure with Caltrain, we believe that HSR can serve San Francisco with less impacts than some may believe. For many years, we advocated Caltrain to pursue light-weight electric trains, which in Europe, those very same regional trains share stations and tracks with high speed intercity trains in urban areas.  By the same token, we have opposed many BART extensions on grounds that BART can never be compatible with Caltrain and high speed rail. BART runs on tracks with 5’6″ non-standard track gauge. Caltrain runs on tracks with 4’8 1/2″ standard gauge, the same gauge used by high speed trains in Europe, Japan, and beyond.

For us, a more pressing question is how to complete high speed rail. Currently Proposition 1A bond and funding from ARRA aren’t enough to complete the entire system between the Bay Area and Los Angeles. The project will be dependent on future government and private funding that has yet to be identified. If HSRA does not earn the public’s confidence, the statewide network will never become reality.

If HSRA could develop a service plan first and add tracks and other structures on a incremental basis based on realistic ridership demands and service needs, the agency would be able to stretch the funds to support other parts of the network, which would help ensure early success of the system.

Although we are not sure whether HSRA shares our values and vision, we know that it is not necessary to force HSR riders to transfer to get to San Francisco, and that it is possible for HSR to be more integrated with Caltrain.