Anthony Lazarus (twitter: @Sr_Lazarus) reports from this week’s meeting of the California High-Speed Rail Authority San Mateo County Working Group, which is focused on planning for high speed rail service and the blended service with Caltrain from SF to San Jose.

In Anthony’s words… We might not realize how this transformative project is progressing. There are already 1,000 people — boots on the ground, if you will — laying 119 miles of rail in the Central Valley right now across seven construction sites. That’s work worth $3 billion.

The draft environmental impact report for the SF to San Jose section is scheduled to be completed by spring 2017, which is little more than 6 months away. (This is slightly later than earlier plans for the end of this year). The authority aims to have 2 alternatives through the region for consideration.

Of particular interest to our working group are proposed plans for a light-maintenance facility at the Brisbane Baylands. HSR trains need to be cleaned up, maintained and stored somewhere near a terminus so that they don’t have to make “deadhead runs” and clog up the rails just to get to their station of origin. Given the issues at Brisbane with the municipality as well as the developer, this is going to be complicated, because such a facility is going to have to go somewhere.

In addition, we looked at a mockup of what Millbrae Station would look like, with BART, Caltrain and HSR all entering at grade. A key challenge is that space is limited at that station. What’s more, SFO is interested in creating a better experience to passengers getting to and from the airport via Millbrae. (Consensus: Getting off Caltrain, switching to BART, getting off at San Bruno, then waiting for an airport-bound train completely stinks.) You can see the difficulties in getting all the parts of the project to fit well together.

It’s impressive to see the holistic qualities of the project in its considerations of safety, access and mobility — particularly for pedestrians, bicyclists, the handicapped and so on. Indeed, transit-oriented development such as being planned by Millbrae is going to be fundamental to the success of HSR and to our region’s future in general.

Millbrae is in the process of reviewing developments proposed for the station area, following the approval of the station area plan, and has a long way to go in making the area more accessible. Stay tuned for more on how to support Millbrae’s plans.

The group also discussed long-term plans for grade separation 42 at-grade crossings. These will take a long-term, concerted effort including the cities.

Your blog editor adds: At the last meeting of the Local Policy Maker Working Group, a body representing all of the cities on the line, the group discussed a proposal to have MTC fund a planning process to create a toolkit to help cities with grade separations over time, including access and placemaking needs.

There are two more meetings next week in San Francisco on Monday at 6pm at SPUR, 654 Mission Street, and on Thursday in Mountain View for Santa Clara County at 6pm, Silicon Valley Community Foundation, 2440 West El Camino Real, Suite 300, Mountain View. The meetings are “fishbowl style” – the meetings are open to the public; the working group members hear HSR updates and provide comments, and members of the general public can comment at the end.

p.s. we will share slides from the meetings once they are posted by the High Speed Rail Authority.