As if Caltrain and high speed rail don’t get enough news coverage already, Mike Rosenberg of San Mateo County times is saying that electrification and high speed rail will make Caltrain run slower – based on a hypothetical schedule with no Baby Bullet trains meant for high speed rail environmental planning. This is another story designed to sensationalize the issue and to divide Caltrain and high speed rail supporters.

The fact is that Caltrain isn’t ready to abandon the Baby Bullet service. As someone who has seen tons of planning documents and a number of transit projects, the hypothetical schedule should be taken with a grain of salt. Read More

It is not hard to imagine life without Caltrain service. Many of us got a taste of that from 2002-2004, when Caltrain suspended weekend trains to facilitate Baby Bullet construction. Although Caltrain provided substitute bus service (which only stopped at three stations), getting up and down the Peninsula was a pain. Many of the weekend train riders (including baseball fans) decided to drive or simply not travel because of the lack of train service.

When Caltrain introduced the Baby Bullet in 2004, Caltrain also resumed local weekend service. The agency offered free service for the first two weekends, which the trains got packed immediately. Even as Caltrain later offered free weekday service on Spare-the-Air days, the trains aren’t quite as packed.

If our region is as pro-environment and pro-transit as we claim, we must not only preserve the Caltrain service that we have, but we must also improve it through electrification. Although Caltrain has been starved of funds for decades because of political neglect, Caltrain planning staff and operating crews are still providing fast and efficient service by stretching the limited equipment they have. Read More

From Caltrain:

The plan to electrify Caltrain will achieve a major milestone pending certification of the Final Environmental Impact Report and Project Adoption on April 1 by the Board of Directors.

Approval by the board completes the environmental process for the Caltrain Electrification Program, a major element of the plans to modernize the Peninsula rail system, and positions the railroad to seek federal and state funding.

Caltrain began the environmental clearance process for electrification t in 2001, but the project faced various delays over the years mostly due to funding concerns. By approving this document, Caltrain will be able to receive additional funding and proceed onto detailed engineering. BayRail Alliance has been a strong supporter for electrification as it would transform Caltrain into a rapid transit system and permit Caltrain to serve the proposed underground station at the Transbay Terminal in Downtown San Francisco.

Electrification FEIR

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.

Information about the MTC’s High Speed Rail strategy.

June 24, 2009

Will Kempton, Director
California Department of Transportation
1120 N St, PO Box 942873
Sacramento, CA 94273-0001

Dear Mr. Kempton:

For more than 25 years, BayRail Alliance has been a strong supporter of Caltrain service improvements on the Peninsula. We are also proud for our advocacy efforts on high speed rail especially during the early part of the decade.

We are writing to express our full support of the San Francisco/Silicon Valley Corridor Investment Strategy recommended by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. We support MTC’s strategy because it is the best approach to fulfill the promise made to voters through last year’s Proposition 1A and the intent set forth in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Read More