A Closer Look At Gilroy
In the comments to yesterday’s post there was some discussion of the situation in south Santa Clara County, specifically around Gilroy. There’s an ongoing debate over where the tracks and the Gilroy HSR station should be located, a debate intensified by the fact that the San José to Gilroy route was the cause of the judge’s order to rescind approval of the EIR for the Bay Area to Central Valley segment due to the inability of the CHSRA to use Union Pacific’s right-of-way.
The basic issue is whether the tracks and station should go through downtown Gilroy, or whether they should pass just east of town, east of both Highway 101 and the Gilroy Outlet Mall. The image below indicates the two primary options (east is the top of the image):
Recent discussions in Gilroy have produced a growing consensus among city officials and community leaders that the preferred implementation would be a downtown station, located approximately where the current Gilroy Caltrain station is – and that the tracks be trenched in order to reduce noise and vibration impacts.
At yesterday’s California High Speed Rail Authority board meeting, Rod Diridon was able to convince the other board members to keep the trench on the table as an option:
Staff had recommended that putting the tracks underground be scratched because of added costs. However, Authority board member and former Santa Clara County Supervisor Rod Diridon said trenching was important to Gilroy residents. Due to his lobbying, the board did not eliminate the trenching option.
“What happened was really a tribute to (the Gilroy Dispatch’s) editorial board meeting last week,” Diridon said after the meeting.
Both editorial board members and local council members favored trenching over aerial tracks, he said.
Trains would potentially be traveling through Gilroy at up to 150mph, and since locals have no experience with this, they’re convinced that a trench is the only acceptable option for implementation through town.
There’s also a desire to channel growth into the city center itself, and concern that a station east of 101 would generate unwanted sprawl in that area, where Gilroy residents fought off a planned Wal-Mart a few years back. Gilroy’s downtown has room to grow upward, and an HSR station would help make that happen.
Further, a downtown station could be (and should be) intermodal, offering easy transfer to Caltrain – not only to serve the stations between San José Diridon and Gilroy (such as Morgan Hill) but also to transfer to expected passenger rail service to the Monterey Bay. Caltrain and the Transportation Agency of Monterey County (TAMC) had been very close to signing an agreement to provide daily service to Salinas when Caltrain pulled back due to budget problems. The concept and plans are still very much alive, if not quite as close to fruition as they used to be. TAMC is also looking at a possible Capitol Corridor extension to Salinas, and there’s still the plans to revive the Coast Daylight from SF to LA via the Coast Line, and in the future that could conceivably be scheduled to provide a cross-platform transfer to HSR at Gilroy.
Santa Cruz County is also nearing an agreement to purchase the tracks from UPRR from Davenport to Pajaro, with the aim of instituting passenger rail service. That could easily be extended to serve the HSR station at Gilroy as well.
There is also an emerging consensus in south Santa Clara County about what the overall alignment should look like:
[Gilroy] Mayor Al Pinheiro said Wednesday that the council on Monday will discuss a joint resolution with Morgan Hill’s council that supports a high-speed train station in Gilroy and U.S. 101 alignment through Morgan Hill.
While Pinheiro said there has been some opposition to the route in northern Santa Clara County, that’s certainly not the case in Gilroy or Morgan Hill, he said.
Diridon said Pinheiro was a supporter of the project early on, and he has appreciated the council’s input.
“I’ve especially enjoyed the mayor’s thoughtfulness and courage on this issue,” he said.
This overall plan seems workable – downtown alignment through Gilroy, 101 alignment (which is straight and on a corridor with room for the tracks) north past Morgan Hill to the San José area. The primary concern, of course, will be cost:
Dave Mansen, regional manager for Parsons Corporation and regional team manager for the Authority, said that trenching the tracks near Gilroy would add as much as 20 percent to the costs of the San Jose-to-Merced portion of the project. Although the entire project is expected to cost $45 billion, specific costs of the various project alternatives have yet to be determined.
As with the Peninsula, the best solution would be for the city of Gilroy to find a way to fund the trenching project itself, potentially as part of a redevelopment project. Gilroy doesn’t yet have a redevelopment agency, but as Rod Diridon argued, they probably ought to, especially if they want a downtown station and its economic benefits.
I think another major issue the staff had with a downtown trench was the sheer size of it. Including platforms, they were looking at a trench 125 feet wide, with considerable property takings possible or likely.
Gilroy has a very nice little downtown and is ripe for TOD and other improvements with the potential to be a real model for other cities along the route. If the people of gilroy are open to it and it sounds like they are, then downtown may be the better choice. It looks like a trench would need to be one mile from <a href="View gilroy trench in a larger map”>leavesly to 10th
off topic but I had to put it in: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE ATK-09-099
December 2, 2009
Contact: Media Relations 202 906.3860
MODEL AMTRAK TRAIN TO CIRCLE NATIONAL CHRISTMAS TREE Represents Amtrak’s Northeast Regional and Midwest Corridor services
WASHINGTON – Model trains are as much a part of the holiday season as candy canes and stockings, and this year Amtrak is honored to have a model train representing America’s railroad operating beneath the most famous Christmas tree of all – the National Christmas Tree.
Working with the National Park Service, the National Park Foundation, and the National Christmas Tree Railroad, Amtrak has provided one of several model trains that will circle the 42- foot Colorado Spruce several thousand times during the holiday season, making its final run at the end of December. Located on the Ellipse, just south of the White House, the National Christmas Tree has been a part of the holiday season since 1923.
The Amtrak model train is 1:22.5 in scale and includes two GE Genesis P42 diesel locomotives and four single-level Amfleet passenger cars plus a café car. The model represents Amtrak Northeast Regional service south of Washington, D.C. and Midwest Corridor service where the trains operate using this type of equipment.
Peter Reply:
December 4th, 2009 at 10:56 am
Cute.
bossyman15 Reply:
December 4th, 2009 at 10:42 pm
any pic of said amtrak model train?
jimsf Reply:
December 4th, 2009 at 11:59 pm
I haven’t found one yet. but Id like to se it. what size is 1:22 scale?
Rod Diridon really needs to get more realistic about what is affordable and politically feasible. You can’t deny Menlo Park a trench and then advocate building one in Gilroy. Given a choice to spend OPM (other people’s money), every community along the route will prefer some type of underground alignment. Giving in to that pressure will result in cost escalations that will sink the entire project. CHSRA must hold the line, softening its stance only after local communities present a viable plan for funding the incremental cost. That doesn’t mean they have to tax themselves into oblivion, just that they have to do a lot more than blithely demand that CHSRA come up with yet more OPM.
On a technical note, Gilroy is in a 100-year flood plain and very close to both the San Andreas and Calaveras faults. Putting tracks in trenches there may not be a good idea for these reasons alone. They are also nominally why Santa Clara county has imposed restrictions on further development in the area, though I suspect there is also a desire to artificially prop up real estate values in Silicon Valley.
At the very least, CHSRA should continue to study the alternative of an at-grade station east of town on the 101 Express/Gilroy Station alternative (in green on p18 PDF), with overpasses for selected existing cross roads. This concept would permit higher speeds for express trains. It should be combined with a motor coach/shuttle van terminal to provide frequent connect transit into downtown and on to Hollister, Watsonville and Monterey. If desired, these bus operations could be cross-subsidized with a small surcharge on all HSR tickets in and out of the Bay Area, even for trains that do not stop in Gilroy. You can run a whole lot of buses for the incremental cost of constructing a trench.
By definition, transit-oriented development within the walkable 1/2 mile radius of a station at Leavesley Rd. wouldn’t be car-centric sprawl. Whether or not Gilroy is interested in expanding into the area east of the premium outlet mall any time soon is essentially a city/county level planning issue that the state of California should stay out of.
My point is that high-capacity connecting rail services only make sense if there is enough ridership to justify the associated investments in additional trackage rights and rolling stock plus operations and maintenance. TAMC’s plans to extend Caltrain to Salinas are aimed narrowly at relieving rush hour traffic on 101. Connecting to HSR at Gilroy is no more than a fringe benefit. This also applies for Amtrak services in the coast corridor. IMHO, the small number of existing and planned additional passenger trains add up to a weak argument for siting the Gilroy station in the downtown area, which will see a lot of through trains even with upgraded connecting transit for the city and region. The primary consideration for station siting should be the environmental impacts on people living and working in downtown Gilroy vs. those on farmers east of 101.
Note that running tracks at grade through the Gilroy depression would put them at greater risk of flooding than if they were elevated, but that has to be weighed against seismic safety, noise emissions, land use impacts on farmers as well as construction cost.
AndyDuncan Reply:
December 4th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
“You can’t deny Menlo Park a trench and then advocate building one in Gilroy.”
Why not? The trains will be going through menlo park at 80-120mph, and through Gilroy at 150+. I agree that a trench is unnecessary and might even have more of an impact than an aerial, but I don’t think there’s a double standard here if the situation is different.
Rafael Reply:
December 4th, 2009 at 2:56 pm
Express HSR trains are supposed to run through Menlo Park at 125mph. The situations are comparable.
Peter Reply:
December 4th, 2009 at 3:20 pm
You’d have less of an environmental justice issue if you trenched Gilroy and not Menlo Park than vice versa, though.
Rafael Reply:
December 4th, 2009 at 4:32 pm
Afaik, federal environmental justice law formally only applies to poor and/or minority areas. However, a trenching in Gilroy but not in Menlo Park would have to be justified on strictly technical grounds or it won’t pass muster on CEQA. Even the currently planned tunnel section in Santa Clara is worth challenging, since Caltrain’s CEMOF facility is hardly sacrosanct in the context of such a large project.
Peter Reply:
December 4th, 2009 at 4:40 pm
So, when comparing Gilroy to Menlo Park, you’re saying they’re equal in terms of demographics and socioeconomic status?
I’m also certain that environmental justice principles are an integral part of CEQA case law, as well.
Rafael Reply:
December 4th, 2009 at 5:09 pm
No, the two are not at all the same in those terms, but justice has to cut both ways. EJ was formalized because poor/minority areas were previously unable to defend themselves adequately. That’s not an excuse for sticking it to more affluent/white areas.
Peter Reply:
December 4th, 2009 at 6:01 pm
I never stated we SHOULD trench either Menlo Park or Gilroy. I don’t think either is going to be necessary technically (MAYBE Gilroy, but likely it would not be feasible), and I think that the impacts that people are terrified of are either overblown or will be sufficiently mitigated.
I merely stated that you would have LESS of a problem in terms of environmental justice with trenching Gilroy and not Menlo Park than vice versa.
Brandon from San Diego Reply:
December 4th, 2009 at 10:47 pm
The term ‘Environmental Justice’ is mis-used all the time.
It was already illegal to discrminate against people or persons falling into a certain class. I can list the classes, but there are so many… I would probably inadvertently leave one off.
When someone says that there is an EJ issue, they could mean a discrimination issue consisitent with our nations Civil Rights laws or Title VI, or they could mean the original application of the term… which drills down to encouraging public agencies to go up and beyond laws dictating public outreach to encourage greater feedback from low income and minority populations.
The intent is to encourage greater and functional public feedback to help guide decision makers to design and provide public infrastructure and services that is more sensative or responsive to low-income and minority populations.
As this pertains to Gilroy and HSR… enhanced outreach would be for low-income and minority populations in the immediate area… to assure that they are informed and so that when they speak-up that their voice is recorded/heard at the table. As an agency, if you don’t hear from them… then you have no information to provide to decision makers to help them with their decisions.
I don’t think it is applicable to compare infrastructure investments in one community or the other AND using prevalence of low-income or minority populations as a factor. Every community is different and each has their own ability, or right, to forward support of a particular solution that they feel is best for their community.
This pains me to type this: I’m a huge BART to SJ supporter. I love the idea of a sleek subway running under downtown San Jose. But I say put 2000′s BART Measure A back in front of SCCo’s voters and propose shifting all that money to Santa Clara County’s portion of HSR AND the Altamont HSR overlay. The money now pegged for Warm Springs BART to SJ/SC could be used for 1) HSR from Palo Alto to Gilroy, including trenching in sensitive area’s, land acquisitions, and station developments, 2) Caltrain improvements and 3) the Altamont HSR overlay/highly upgraded ACE. An intermodal station with BART and “Super ACE” could be implemented in Fremont/WS. Rafael, what could $6 billion get us in Santa Clara County in terms of HSR, Caltrain, and ACE?
jimsf Reply:
December 4th, 2009 at 2:09 pm
I have to disagree. I’m a firm believer in bart finishing its original goal of ringing the bay.
Peter Reply:
December 4th, 2009 at 2:30 pm
So, when the ring is completed, tighten the noose?
Rafael Reply:
December 4th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
BART’s philosophy is local-only service on ridiculously long lines. There are no express service levels of any type. How would that serve the peninsula any better than electrified, fully grade separated Caltrain?
Tony D. Reply:
December 4th, 2009 at 4:01 pm
Well, you could eliminate Caltrain entirely and have BART local/HSR express service from Millbrae down the Peninsula to SJ/Diridon. I know, I know, this will never happen.
Peter Reply:
December 4th, 2009 at 4:03 pm
I think I would have to puke.
jimsf Reply:
December 4th, 2009 at 11:16 pm
If bart fills in the gap between millbrae and santa clara it would not dup the caltrain, but follow more a of a 280 route. just as the 101 and 280 serve two dirfferent clientele so would bart and cal train. Ive been riding bart since it opened. I grew up with it, I don’t have the weird aversion to it that some traditionalists have. For me, bart has always done exactly what I expect and exactly what it was intended to do. get me around to various parts of the bay — thus the name.
jimsf Reply:
December 4th, 2009 at 11:25 pm
( and really, isn’t this a bay area concern and not a concern of folks who live in LA?) For three decades bar has taken me to work, to he oakland airport, to the san francisco airport ( which I use almost exclusively now thanks to the convenience) to Target in Tanforan, to and from many east bay points wher I meet up with friends, and it delivers my visitors who arrive at the airports, literally to my front door, as well as my eastbay friends/co workers who come to the city and who don’t wanna drive and park – brings them right to my front door. The only thing negative I can say about bart is the trains are getting worn and dirty, and that is due to heavy use and the fact that the general public has become so uncivilized with the influx of the third world, which isn’t barts fault.
I think there is a “real choo choo’s only” bias here in blogland quite frankly along the lines of the “kopp as antichirt” sentiment.
Rafael Reply:
December 5th, 2009 at 3:40 am
BART along 280 wouldn’t provide a useful transit service for the peninsula, there isn’t a whole lot of population in that corridor between Daly City and Cupertino. Besides, just how many railways does the peninsula need, it’s not as if the population there is set to grow all that much.
BART is a “real choo-choo” but it’s essentially a subway on steroids. With all trains running as locals, trips of tens of miles take much longer than they ought to. Subways are great for densely populated cities. Once your lines get much beyond 10 miles, it’s time to start thinking about a regional rail concept with some express trains.
jimsf Reply:
December 6th, 2009 at 12:09 pm
Mark my words…. bart will, at some point, fulfill their goal of world domination. you’ll see.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
December 5th, 2009 at 7:47 pm
isn’t this a bay area concern and not a concern of folks who live in LA
When the Bay Area pays for it it’s a Bay Area concern. When the MTA and BART take great big gooey gobs of state and federal money it’s everybody’s concern.
jimsf Reply:
December 6th, 2009 at 12:05 pm
Dont even go there. southern california gets almost all the states money and gets everything they want all the time. meanwhile the northern california infrastructure is still in the 1970s. do not go there……. for reals….. we can’t get a damn thing up here and when socali wants something, whether its a freeway lane or interchange or more water or anything they get it. they have all the political power in this state. even bart and the new bay bridge combined dont come anywhere close to what socal has in terms of huge chunks of the states pie.
Alon Levy Reply:
December 6th, 2009 at 12:44 pm
This is not true. On the federal level, both Greater LA and the Bay Area run tax/spending surpluses of about $40 billion each; the rest of the state takes in more money than it pays, especially Sacramento and the Central Valley. San Diego is a tax recipient as well, barely.
Rafael Reply:
December 4th, 2009 at 2:20 pm
Since BART is funded at the county level, the extension south of Fremont actually has two components. The one to Fremont Warm Springs is a regular BART project that was delayed when the extension to SFO ran over budget. MTC re-programmed $146 million in regular transportation funds from Alameda county to San Mateo county, which has since returned the favor by re-programming $91 million from Dumbarton Rail to the WSX. Some $54 million are still outstanding, Alameda county isn’t charging any interest.
The portion between Warm Springs and Santa Clara is called “BART to Silicon Valley” and is a VTA construction project with a separate source of funding.
Ground has now been broken on the WSX project, which will leverage the portion of the VTA-owned WPML right of way that lies in Alameda county. That means this right of way is definitely not available for standard gauge passenger rail.
All in all, it’s a complicated arrangement. Given that Santa Clara county voters approved not one but two sales tax hikes to get it built, the notion that it could easily be halted in favor of constructing an HSR overlay is unrealistic. Besides, the whole point of the two projects was to coax commuters from as far north as Hayward off I-880 by offering them a single-seat ride to their employers, who are supposed to set up shop in the Fremont Warm Springs, SJ Diridon and Santa Clara TOD projects. In addition, Beryessa is supposed to be a residential TOD.
Relieving I-680 at the Sunol Grade is also important to Silicon Valley employers but evidently not at the top of the list. A fast regional link up to Sacramento is frankly not a priority for them, though plenty of people would like to see one built. However, given the high cost of HSR and the various BART extensions, I doubt funding for a full-fat HSR overlay through Altamont Pass will be available in the foreseeable future (~30 years).
A more realistic target would be upgrades to the existing standard-speed ACE service, e.g. by pressing the old SP alignments through Altamont Pass and Niles Canyon back into regular commercial service, in combination with trackage rights on UPRR’s Milpitas line between Niles and SJ Diridon. Some new track and negotiations with NCRY would be required in various places. Note that NCRY is dedicated to preserving historic railroading, signals and all – not an ideal context for implementing PTC.
Over time, the SP alignment could be rectified with a few strategically placed short tunnels. It might also be a good idea to expand the ACE fleet with FRA-compliant DMUs, given that UPRR won’t host non-compliant rolling stock on any right of way it owns. WiFi on board would be another valuable upgrade, ACE has already experimented with that.
—
IMHO, the only scenarios in which full-fat HSR through Altamont Pass will ever be built involve CHSRA abandoning the Pacheco Pass route because it can’t secure a viable and affordable right of way. That would eliminate Gilroy and the region south and west of it from the HSR network.
Even then, PCJPB might insist that CHSRA electrify and fully grade separate the entire right of way between SF and San Jose. If so, the starter line would split in Redwood City and involve a new fixed link across Dumbarton, quite possibly an immersed tube rather than a tall bridge. In the East Bay, the alignment could follow CA-84 and Decoto Rd for a valuable intermodal with BART in Union City. Lots of expensive tunneling involved, though, including across the Hayward fault. Line haul time between SF and LA would be about the same, SJ-LA would be longer but SF-Sac and SJ-Sac would be a lot shorter.
CHSRA did study one Altamont alternative that linked SF to LA via a head-end station at San Jose Diridon. If the South Bay station were sited in Santa Clara instead, run-through tracks would become possible, reducing the SF-LA line haul penalty relative to Pacheco Pass to about 8 minutes. San Jose residents would simply ride BART for one extra stop.
An even more radical alternative would eliminate both the RWC/PA station and the one at SJ Diridon in favor of one in Mountain View (intermodal Caltrain) plus one in Milpitas (intermodal BART). Tracks would use the CA-237 corridor to avoid a new Bay crossing and then run across to Calaveras Ave in a 6-7mi tunnel under Monument Peak before heading north toward a station serving the Pleasanton/Livermore area. Again, the Hayward fault would have to be crossed underground.
Off topic: Tulare county officials accept HSR route along BNSF corridor, pledge to work with King’s County to lobby for a regional station east of Hanford. No mention of the 24 station limit in AB3034(2008) (section 2704.09.(d)). CHSRA is already at 25 including the mid-peninsula stop between Millbrae and San Jose. Hanford would be #26, unless stations elsewhere are eliminated.
University City could be on the list if the route is changed, but that doesn’t mean San Diego county would forfeit “its” stop. City of Industry is a more likely target, but both Pomona and San Bernardino are mustard-keen on getting a station. Irvine is still officially penciled in for a phase 2 extension.
Note that the 24 includes all of the corridors described, including the one through Altamont Pass that would add stations in Tracy, Pleasanton/Livermore and Union City/Fremont/Milpitas (depending on route). A strict reading of the bill suggests the limit applies even of no prop 1A(2008) bonds are used to fund construction of additional stations. State lawmakers ought to grill CHSRA on this before they make any sort of commitment to Hanford or indeed, to either RWC, Palo Alto or Mountain View.
jimsf Reply:
December 4th, 2009 at 11:33 pm
But if they are using bnsf, that takes the train to the existing station in downtown hanford, not east of hanford, or do the plan to do a quick downtown bypass.
Rafael Reply:
December 5th, 2009 at 3:40 am
Yes, Hanford itself will be bypassed.
Joey Reply:
December 5th, 2009 at 10:19 am
I would be a lot less skeptical about a Hanford station if someone was committing to a better way to connect Visalia especially, and also Tulare, to it.
Ideally, why not build the through tracks through the greenfield, and have the stopping trains go onto the existing Caltrain tracks, or at least the existing alignment? Here, by the way, is where through-routing would be very handy: north of Gilroy, the HSR trains that actually stop there can just cut over to the Caltrain tracks, stop at the Caltrain station in Gilroy for (ideally) a same-platform transfer to Salinas, Monterey, or Hollister, and then get back to the HSR line south of the station.
Rafael Reply:
December 5th, 2009 at 3:42 am
UPRR and FRA won’t permit non-compliant HSR trains onto the UPRR tracks.
I almost always favor track alignments through downtowns for the primary reason of ridership but I wonder in the case of Gilroy if there is an even greater opportunity if the tracks were east of downtown. Given a “blank slate” perhaps placing tracks here combined with a large transit oriented development plan could have greater benefits without the entanglements of eminent domain.
Thoughts?
Rafael Reply:
December 4th, 2009 at 4:42 pm
Taking agricultural land is also an act of eminent domain. Farmers hate having their fields bisected by new railroad tracks.
If Gilroy already had a solid plan for a new TOD district east of the Premium Outlet Mall, I suspect no-one would even consider the extreme disruption associated with constructing an alignment – especially an open trench – through the downtown area. Absent such a plan, a station at Leavesley Rd. would induce a lot of additional car trips or else fail to deliver the forecast ridership level. Note that the “transit” aspect of TOD refers to local connecting transportation in addition to HSR.
Peter Reply:
December 4th, 2009 at 4:55 pm
They’re not going to plan a TOD district there without knowing that there will in fact be a station there.
Rafael Reply:
December 4th, 2009 at 5:06 pm
At this point, it’s more or less up to them as long as CHSRA can secure a right of way out of south San Jose. There’s still some time to make the decision, so city and county officials have some time to spell out the scenario in terms of its commercial viability, impact on local traffic patterns, farming, water consumption, flood risk, earthquake risk, population growth etc. They don’t need to cut a deal with a specific developer to create those models.
Joseph Reply:
December 4th, 2009 at 8:06 pm
We have intentionally not developed the Leavesly area and spent millions to maintain and improve our existing urban areas. We’re trying to maintain a town. not build a station in a pepper field and abandon our town.
Clem Reply:
December 5th, 2009 at 10:39 am
> a station at Leavesley Rd. would induce a lot of additional car trips
That might be the case if ridership at Gilroy HSR were primarily from the area within 1/2 mile of the station. But let’s not kid ourselves that this is any sort of “TOD”. Gilroy HSR will serve a multi-county area that extents all the way down to Monterey. Most Gilroy HSR riders will arrive at the station by car, from many miles away. Putting the station downtown will bring lots of unnecessary traffic and make the HSR parking lot much more difficult to access from the freeway.
Enough with the TOD hogwash: on the whole, it’s reasonable to expect that the carbon impact of a downtown station would be far worse.
Rafael Reply:
December 5th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
I agree that there are compelling arguments for a station at Leavesley Rd., last not least the difficulty of obtaining any ROW at all in downtown Gilroy without razing a lot of buildings. Gilroy isn’t SF or San Jose, it won’t benefit nearly as much from having an HSR station in the downtown area as those cities will. The millions spent on maintaining and improving the existing built-up area of what is still a small rural town might be better leveraged by running city buses between the downtown area and an HSR station at the edge of town. Unlike e.g. Palo Alto, Gilroy has the luxury of having open farmland to the east. That’s where HSR tracks should go IMHO.
It’s also true that the Gilroy station is supposed to serve a much larger region. It would be easier to accommodate those who choose to arrive by car at Leavesley than in the downtown area. That said, there’s a lot to be said for hopping on a comfortable motor coach in e.g. downtown Monterey and transferring to an HSR train in Gilroy. TOD near the Gilroy station isn’t at all essential, just an option for future development.
joe Reply:
December 5th, 2009 at 1:33 pm
I appreciate the interest in Gilroy but the characterization of my town is really not correct.
As a local who uses bus and train service, the city has built a local transportation infrastructure around the 10th street station which includes Monterey and San Benito buses and local buses including 68 / 168 and 121. Also shuttle buses which use the 10th station as a hub.
Outsiders have to accept that Gilroy’s resisted sprawl and added higher density homes and live work developments in downtown. We’re trying to keep the town alive, not move it to a larger parking lot.
Sounds like a horrible HSR station, a sea of parking around a island of a station plopped in a peper field. Awesomely bad idea.
So building a HSR station near where people already live and the city has built higher density homes is the best way to reduce the carbon footprint.
As for accommodating more cars there is ample room around 10th st and downtown with open lots and underdeveloped lots. A role model for expanding parking near downtown and the advantages of doing that expansion without ruining walkability is Mountain View.
Clem Reply:
December 5th, 2009 at 10:13 pm
Your underlying assumptions ought to be stated clearly. You apparently think that it is desirable to live or work next to a 220 mph, 95-100 dBA train station that most local residents will use 3 or 4 times a year.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
December 6th, 2009 at 12:18 am
I took a quick look at the satellite images of Gilroy. How many people live or work next to the tracks? There’s a lot of parking lot, open lot and backside of commercial building along the ROW.
Spokker Reply:
December 6th, 2009 at 12:34 am
But-but-but my cul-de-sac!
adirondacker12800 Reply:
December 6th, 2009 at 9:36 am
…and the view from Google street view looks like there’s already a sound wall in place between the houses and El Camino Real. A 100 dBA train travels through on the other side of an existing soundwall that’s 100 feet away from the train…. you’ll have to listen carefully to hear the train over the traffic noise.
AndyDuncan Reply:
December 6th, 2009 at 12:39 am
As should yours, clem, the trains won’t be traveling at 220mph through gilroy, even in the fastest alignments which were just rejected by the authority.
Clem Reply:
December 6th, 2009 at 9:17 am
Andy, I’m not assuming anything. The CHSRA’s own speed simulations do indeed show 220 mph through Gilroy. The board can hem and haw and equivocate about it all they want, that’s what their engineers are planning for! See for example slide 13 of this board presentation.
AndyDuncan Reply:
December 6th, 2009 at 12:07 pm
Hmm, I was looking at the old ones. My bad. I do agree with your general sentiment that a station in Gilroy is going to be a park-and-ride facility serving a large section of the central coast, and doesn’t really need to be downtown. But if Gilroy is clamoring to have it downtown…
The Authority really needs to come up with some noise/vibration impact standards and then design accordingly. I seem to recall a study from them years ago on noise impact of various types of structures and trains, but I haven’t seen anything since.
Clem Reply:
December 6th, 2009 at 1:27 pm
The good citizens of Gilroy have no idea about what they’re clamoring to have downtown. They simply haven’t the first clue of how loud and disruptive HSR will be; I can think of no better way to ruin a downtown, other than building an airport runway within walking distance of the Starbucks. It makes no sense.
The HSR people are not being up front about the noise and vibration impacts of very very high speeds. The non-stop trains will either THUNDER through, or all trains will be slowed to reduce the impact, effectively turning Gilroy (pop. 51,000) into a speed bump for the entire statewide HSR network. It makes no sense.
The only thing keeping the downtown option alive right now is some goo-goo-ga-ga feel-good talk about Transit Oriented Development. What a joke.
AndyDuncan Reply:
December 6th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
Well, one more reason to pick the shinkansens for the rolling stock and japanese-style sound walls on those aerials. The Fastech 360s may have failed in their attempt to run at 360km/h while keeping trackside noise under 75dba, but they were able to run them at 330kph and still keep trackside noise under 75dba. Previous studies found about 2dba per 30kmh speed increase, so you’re still talking less than 80dba at 360km/h. That’s quieter than a city bus and quieter than the freight rail and caltrain trains that are going through there now. Not quite “thundering”.
AndyDuncan Reply:
December 6th, 2009 at 12:34 pm
Here’s the CHSRA’s “noise and vibration impact criteria.
Spokker Reply:
December 6th, 2009 at 12:39 am
Clem, if we have to kow-tow to situations like this, then there is no hope for high speed rail in sprawling California.
Look at the above map. There’s open land on either side of the property, yet they still built right up next to the railroad tracks. You can’t win in this state.
timote Reply:
December 7th, 2009 at 3:43 pm
“Outsiders have to accept that Gilroy’s resisted sprawl and added higher density homes and live work developments in downtown. We’re trying to keep the town alive, not move it to a larger parking lot.”
Hmmm. I don’t live in Gilroy, but I’ve been there frequently over the last decade or two as my in-laws live there. If Gilroy is resisting sprawl, they have a really weird way of doing so – I’m looking at you Eagle Ridge, Best Buy/Lowe’s/Costco, Target/B&N/PetSmart/Kohl’s, etc.
Not that I’m particularly enthused about extending the sprawl but at least in Gilroy, unlike many of the areas previously discussed on this blog, there are options with greenfield not too far from downtown.
Found this new info posted on the hsr site news
you know, 1500 jobs, thats permanent jobs, ( in addition to the engineering and construction jobs)…1500 permanent, good paying jobs, in a place like Merced for instance, is a very big deal. These types of jobs pay enough for workers to afford to buy typical housing in the community, and to support existing and new local business. I think we’ll see valley towns will fight like coyotes over this piece of meat.
Rafael Reply:
December 4th, 2009 at 5:37 pm
They already are. Atwater, Madera and Fresno have all expressed interest already. Hanford could still do so, especially if CHSRA ends up deciding against building a station there.
Actually they should put it at the Y in chowchilla. it could employ half the adult population.
BTW can they shave some time off of tehachapi by cutting a corner at mojave like this
wow this is a great topo map where you can cruise through the state — look here where you can compare the teh. route versus the gv route. see how the climb through teh. and descent into SF valley are both longer and more gradual with more at grade possibilities as well as crossing both faults at grade than the grapevine. The gv would have the train crossing right through the intersection of the two faults, at a high steep elevation, in a tunnel.
anyway its a fun map check it out.
The plan is to run at 220 mph on the express tracks through the downtowns. Dan Leavitt and I had a long conversation about this. They don’t see any reason why you can’t.
In my opinion, this is very far from settled but one of those critical planning decisions that need to made NOW. Numerous items in the plan hinge on this assumption and their has been no buyoff yet by residents. The rulemaking by the FRA on high speed trains hasn’t even happened.
The numbers I have seen suggest 95-100 decibels, with 5 decibels reduction possible with good noise barriers.
My understanding is that a lot of work has gone into holding tight at the city limits and trying to avoid sprawl.
Gilroy is in a real bind.
My bet is on a greenfields site.
BruceMcF Reply:
December 5th, 2009 at 7:54 am
What would be the noise through town with a viaduct and a vitrine?
Clem Reply:
December 6th, 2009 at 1:31 pm
What is a vitrine and where can I find a real example of one, outside of idealistic blogosphere chatter?
and its easy to see why you do not built tunnels through the san andreas fault.
Rafael Reply:
December 5th, 2009 at 3:59 am
Actually, the southern San Andreas doesn’t creep at all. That’s why whenever it does slip, the earthquake tends to be a really big one. I’m not sure where this is image is from, up near Parkfield the San Andreas creeps a lot, resulting in very frequent but small quakes. You could be looking at many millenia of accumulated creep.
The Garlock and the Hayward are examples of faults that do creep, just not by enough to avoid occasional major quakes. A section of rigid slab trackbed on a layer that is soft in shear (e.g. clay) will rotate to compensate for lateral creep. Over time, what started out as a dead straight track ends up as a slight chicane by the time the track is worn out, at which point a longer stretch to either side of the fault is rebuilt to increase the curve radii. It’s possible to do this underground as well, in so-called fault chambers. It’s much easier to deal with at grade, though.
jimsf Reply:
December 5th, 2009 at 11:39 am
Yeh that was up on the plain, but my point just to show that there is movement over time, and that if you build the tracks underground, at a point that crosses the fault, anywhere, eventually the it gets out of alignment. whether is snaps all at once, creeps by a couple inches, or disforms in some other way. Thus, no matter what the pro grapevine folks say, you simply can’t use the grapevine unless you cross at grade, and that would be a very steep climb to reach that elevation with out tunneling. To stay at grade would mean using a lot of switch back, which would add just as much time to the route as going through tehachapi.
@jimsf
That route would require a lot more tunneling.
Really, the SF-LA route selection is pretty good. I’ve looked at it extensively and haven’t found much to criticize.
jimsf Reply:
December 5th, 2009 at 11:40 am
Yeah Im very happy with the route choice….i just thought the could cut a corner between teh and pmd and save a couple minutes. is just flat desert.
jimsf Reply:
December 5th, 2009 at 12:11 pm
yeah that was a sloppy drawing anyway look here again,, im not meaning to tunnel more but just cut corners after emerging from the hills
PeakVT Reply:
December 5th, 2009 at 3:46 pm
It looks like there are a few houses along Backus Rd. just south of that small set of hills. The CHSRA route (which meets SR-14 just south of Mojave) appears to disrupt none. The CHSRA route also would make a Mojave-Barstow connector easier because the junction would be out in the flats, not on the side of a ridge. Here’s a three-way HSR junction for reference.
Like I said, the SF-LA route is pretty good. Unless the CHSRA suddenly receives a massive budget increase, I can’t see any improvements in the route.
jimsf Reply:
December 5th, 2009 at 4:08 pm
ha, I love how french towns have names like “brie en croute” and “duck a l’orange”…
do you think the train will emerge from the tunnel and follow this “big inch pipeline road.”
notice how that comes right through the windmills shown in the videos… and it seems to be a wide utility row there already…
Joey Reply:
December 5th, 2009 at 4:31 pm
See HSR google map for the preferred alignment, or at least what that was back when this was made…
Joey Reply:
December 5th, 2009 at 4:32 pm
Ehh that would be Dec 19, 2007 so about 2 years ago
jimsf Reply:
December 5th, 2009 at 6:51 pm
ah yes its more to the north. guess they don’t need to stick to any type of existing row, road, orcorridor out there in all the sand. boy I love seeing all that land just ripe for development. In my other life I would have been a developer and planned cities from scratch,….. like california city….. you know I know where we can get the water…. see, the ice is melting up north right, and the problem with that is it makes the sea level rise which is a big issue. SO, I say, we build a pipe from up there down to cali, the north pole pipeline, and we use all that melting ice, to make the high and low deserts from Salton to Cali city, bloom into gorgeous luxury living. That way, not only do we get the water, but we keep it from flowing, wasted, into the ocean where it causes a problem of rising sea levels. see, you solve two probs at once, plus create jobs again. I say we add that to the water plan.
jimsf Reply:
December 5th, 2009 at 7:09 pm
in fact, if they use a flexible sort of giant garden hose, they can lay it under the coast off shore ( just like we are currently laying a giant extension cord for SF between the city and the delta) then run it through and up the bay, to the clifton forebay, then pump it into the existing system for distribution to points south. there would even be enough to refill the salton sea and mono and owens.
AndyDuncan Reply:
December 5th, 2009 at 8:20 pm
It’s only seven, started drinking early tonight? :-)
jimsf Reply:
December 5th, 2009 at 10:41 pm
lol, I just got back from groceries, so I have to chill the champagne first.
I just like to think big. I mean really, americans have become such reactionary “no-bies”
We cant possibly do anything. We are helpless. “why, you can’t do that! no one has ever done that before, my heavens, it just unheard of!” (clutch pearls here).
god Im sick of it. We, especially as californias, can do any damn thing we want. if people would stop being such babies about everything.
if they can make a pipe for oil they can make one for water. ok? and if the ice is melting, and its just runnning off into the ocean, and meanwhile there is a shortage of water, then for gods sake go get the damn water and use it.
god this whole country is so over.
meanwhile around the world theyre boring tunnels through mountain ranges, building astronomic sized bridges, putting tubes under the ocean, building whole islands from scratch. They have indoor skiing in Dubai for christ’s sake.
and america just sits here with its finger in its nose like a big retard.
jimsf Reply:
December 5th, 2009 at 4:20 pm
pardon my obsession with googlemaps, but you can see here that this pipleline road, which is a utility right of way, but not acually a paved road.. is perfect for the hsr row as you can see the straight shot to the would be portal in the distance at the base of the hills….
see here and here for instance…
adirondacker12800 Reply:
December 6th, 2009 at 9:41 am
I’d hazard a guess that Pipeline Road is called Pipeline Road because there’s a pipeline under it. Land is cheap out in the desert. Lots cheaper than all the engineering and concrete that would have to go into building over a pipeline.
jimsf Reply:
December 6th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
well, yes but you dont have to set the train samck ontop of it, but along side it.- just sayin, theres an established, cleared, straight row there. but with all that “nothing but sand” out there, guess it doesnt matter where they put it.
Im sure going to consider buying a place in palmdale though