Court Tosses Peninsula Anti-HSR Suit
In a development that should surprise nobody who is familiar with the suit or the issues it raises, a judge here in Sacramento is expected to throw out the Russ Peterson lawsuit against HSR. Peterson, a noted HSR opponent, filed suit claiming that neither Caltrain nor the CHSRA could start any work on the project without Union Pacific’s approval.
In a tentative ruling issued Monday in advance of a hearing in Sacramento County Superior Court today, Judge Kevin Culhane said the suit has no merit to proceed to trial. Caltrain and the rail authority had filed a motion to dismiss the case.
“I am not surprised one bit,” said retired San Mateo County Judge Quentin Kopp, a high-speed rail board member. “It was the most frivolous lawsuit I could remember in 50 years as a trial lawyer and trial judge.”
Two property owners near the tracks in Menlo Park — homeowner Russell Peterson and the Halstead Nursery owners — filed the suit in August. They sought to prove that construction of the high-speed railroad along the Caltrain tracks from San Francisco to San Jose could not start until both agencies obtained consent from Union Pacific, which runs late-night freight trains on the corridor.
Peterson is claiming victory, that the suit has already forced acknowledgement that UP has to consent before further work can continue. Of course, this was always something of a formality, since the agreement by which the Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board acquired the tracks enabled Caltrain to kick UP off the corridor whenever they chose initiate proceedings to end freight service.
While news of the lawsuit’s dismissal is no surprise, UP’s attitude toward the Caltrain/HSR project might be:
In an interview, Union Pacific officials said they would not seek to block construction of the project. While Union Pacific is opposed to the project south of San Jose — where they own the tracks outright — the company is willing to work with the rail authority on sharing the rail line from San Francisco to San Jose, officials said.
Caltrain attorney David Miller said the agency has yet to ask Union Pacific for its consent but fully expects the freight company to give it.
As part of Caltrain’s agreement to share tracks with Union Pacific, the company must “negotiate in good faith” on projects that could help Caltrain. In the case of the high-speed rail initiative, the state would help fund Caltrain’s project to electrify the railroad.
“If UP felt its rights were being violated, they would have been the ones that brought the suit or intervened in the suit,” Miller said. “This is our corridor. We have a good relationship with UP.”
The moral of this story, then, is that one needs leverage over Union Pacific to break their obstructionism on high speed rail. Caltrain has it, and as a result UP is behaving very well on that corridor.
But where the state of California has no leverage – where UP owns the tracks outright – UP is doing all it can to undermine the project by refusing to share its ROW.
There, the leverage lies with Congress – which needs to move quickly to assert its regulatory power and force UP to be more accommodating of the HSR project. UP is a federally-chartered railroad that exists because Congress wanted them to handle the nation’s passenger and freight needs. It’s inappropriate for them to stall and obstruct the passenger side of things just because they want to maintain control for some future possible freight service (and I support freight rail, and want to see it expanded, but in a way that also helps boost HSR).
I think in the end good ole fashion $$$$ will create “leverage” with UPRR.
rafael Reply:
June 22nd, 2010 at 10:38 am
Perhaps, they are a for-profit corporation after all. In the past, however, US railroads have only cut deals on rights of way that were anyhow marginal, except when they had to have a fire sale to stave of bankruptcy. These companies have very long term business models and, their active rights of way are the family heirlooms. Once gone, they can de facto never be replaced.
Tony D. Reply:
June 22nd, 2010 at 12:40 pm
I hear yah Rafael!
However, as it relates to the UPRR ROW between San Jose/Lick and Gilroy: I don’t think that corridor will ever see high freight volumes, very long term included. It’s already two-track for much of the ROW and lightly used for freight: don’t think we’ll ever see 3-4 tracks for freight. At the very least, HSR should have no issues/problems using the adjacent Monterey Hwy corridor for its track to Morgan Hill, even if UPRR doesn’t like that idea either (can’t have it all UP!). OT, I say HSR from Morgan Hill to Gilroy use 101.
HSRforCali Reply:
June 22nd, 2010 at 1:29 pm
I was going through archived materials on the Authority’s website and they sudied the possibility of routing the alignment between San Jose and Merced through the Diablo Range, avoiding Gilroy and Morgan Hill. Ironically, one of the biggest reasons why Pacheco was chosen was to pass through Morgan Hill and Gilroy, something that’s obviously become a bit of a problem lately. You guys probably won’t like this, but does anyone else think it would’ve been a better idea to route the HST alignment through the Diablo Range?
political_incorrectness Reply:
June 22nd, 2010 at 2:24 pm
Was there environmental concerns using that ROW? Would more tunneling have been required? It would benefit Merced in providing a connection without having to back track but Gillroy helps as a connection to Monterrey County. At this rate to restudy the Diablo Range, it would have a negative impact to the project.
Peter Reply:
June 22nd, 2010 at 2:28 pm
IIRC, that route entailed the greatest impacts to the Henry Coe State Park.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
June 22nd, 2010 at 3:15 pm
The Coe Park route was a straw man “alternative” to Pacheco pimped by our BART-to-San-Jose friends (PBQD, Kopp, etc) in 1999 after they unilaterally eliminated Altamont from even being studied.
See http://undergraduatestudies.ucdavis.edu/explorations/2006/hilliard.pdf
It was never a serious technical proposal: it existed solely so that PB could claim they had an alternative to the predetermined all-trains-via-Los-Banos route in their highly professional and scrupulously ethical and utterly impartial environmental analyses.
A bonus was the spectacle of people like Rod Diridon claiming to be environmental heroes, saving conservation lands from depredation by bravely choosing the only alternative that didn’t cut through the heart of a wilderness area in a state park.
Nice people we’re dealing with here.
Clem Reply:
June 22nd, 2010 at 9:48 pm
In hindsight it’s amazing to see how the number of trains per day tripled between the 2004 Program EIR and the latest EIRs. They were talking about 66 trains per day per direction, and now we’re well north of 200.
Elizabeth Reply:
June 22nd, 2010 at 10:26 pm
Well, if you increase the value of frequency in your ridership model by a factor of five, you decide to run a lot more trains.
YesonHSR Reply:
June 22nd, 2010 at 11:00 pm
Even 4 trains per hour will pay for themselves…like that freeway you OO so drive on all the time…got numbers for that?
YesonHSR Reply:
June 22nd, 2010 at 10:24 pm
So are you
Nathanael Reply:
June 24th, 2010 at 11:38 pm
Altamont was an environmental catastrophe and fantastically expensive, as well as too slow. Get off it.
The *serious* alternative to Pacheco was via Stockton, Oakland and a new Transbay Tube…. which gets more riders and has numerous extra benefits but apparently that was “too expensive” (== sticker shock at the new Transbay tube).
the agreement by which the Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board acquired the tracks enabled Caltrain to kick UP off the corridor whenever they chose.
That’s an incorrect characterization. The agreement allows Caltrain to initiate freight abandonment proceedings with the federal government (with no guarantee of prevailing) if and only if the method of delivering commuter service becomes technically incompatible with freight. Claiming such incompatibility now, after years and years of bending over backwards to make the corridor fully compatible with freight (low platforms, extremely tall overhead contact system, limited gradients, freight-based PTC, HSR alternatives analysis restricted to freight-compatible options, etc.) would be suspect, to say the least.
8.3(c) is the BART clause. It is there solely so BART can one day connect Millbrae to Santa Clara. There is no advantage to Caltrain from this clause.
If UP initiates abandonment proceedings as a business decision, on the other hand, things could get interesting… UP’s intercity rights are worth some money, but UP’s peninsula customers would likely demand (i.e. sue for) a settlement.
Peninsula Rail 2010 Reply:
June 22nd, 2010 at 4:10 pm
Caltrain can’t just kick UP off the Peninsula corridor whenever they choose, despite being very desirable for the design of fast passenger operations.
Clause 8.3(c) allows the request to abandon corridor freight operations with the Surface Transportation Board, but it doesn’t imply anything about the STB actually granting the request. The STB could easily just reject the application. UP could care less about the tiny amount of freight moved on the Peninsula, but the few remaining freight customers on the Peninsula are bigger stakeholders.
rafael Reply:
June 22nd, 2010 at 7:56 pm
I’m not sure 8.3(c) should be interpreted narrowly as referring to a BART option only. It is Caltrain – not CHSRA – that has decided it needs to embark on a program of capital investments to triple ridership by 2025, i.e. to reduce its operating subsidy per passenger by a factor of 3. Short of such a metamorphosis, Caltrain will be shuttered down sooner rather than later.
The components required for this are:
(a) DTX tunnel to downtown SF
(b) new, lightweight, modern passenger rolling stock (i.e. non-compliant)
(c) level boarding and ADA compliance
(d) electrification (for acceleration performance, recuperative braking, access to downtown SF)
(e) positive train control and modern traffic management
(f) environmental approval to double train frequency during rush hour
Requirement (b) implies a mixed traffic waiver, which Caltrain has been granted. Requirement (a) is predicated on (d).
Requirement (f) implies full corridor separation, since anything less would snarl up vehicular cross traffic. Curiously, Caltrain never mentioned that in its own Caltrain 2025 plans, perhaps because it knows how expensive and disruptive that is. Perhaps they figured that the cities and counties would grudgingly embark on a grade separation program if and when the cross traffic issue became unbearable enough. That is, after all, how political support and funding for all previous grade separations has come about.
Caltrain’s only interest in working with CHSRA is as a source of funding to meet requirements (a) and (f), i.e. full grade separation. However, that implies quad tracking a large fraction if not all of the peninsula corridor plus dealing with the intersections that are hardest to separate (or they would already have been separated years ago). The 1% gradient limit and freight spur access imposed by freight operations greatly constrain the available vertical alignment options, such that environmental approval is at risk and/or cost would be beyond reason (e.g. tunnels for PAMPA).
Therefore, Caltrain’s viability in the medium and long term depends on massive capital investments that may yet prove infeasible if freight must also be preserved in its present form. If the choice were shuttering Caltrain (definitely a reason for invoking 8.3(c)) and restricting/eliminating freight in order to meet requirement (f), peninsula voters would sacrifice freight. It’s just that there is not yet general agreement that making this choice is even necessary. Plan A is to implement full grade separation in a way that is compatible with existing, limited heavy freight operations.
It’s a convoluted argument and one that Caltrain doesn’t want to make right now, but if push came to shove, full grade separation could become a valid reason for invoking 8.3(c) – even though the track gauge remains unchanged.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
June 22nd, 2010 at 8:26 pm
Requirement (b) implies a mixed traffic waiver, which Caltrain has been granted. Requirement (a) is predicated on (d).
You don’t need electrification to go through tunnels. It’s very helpful but you don’t need it. The fan plant wouldn’t be particularly pretty but it could be done.
rafael Reply:
June 22nd, 2010 at 9:57 pm
Right, fan plants every few hundred feet between 4th & King and the Transbay Terminal in downtown SF so you can run diesel trains into a busy underground station. I can totally see how local residents would sign off on an EIR for that. Not to mention the city’s fire department.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
June 22nd, 2010 at 10:40 pm
Automobile tunnels go for miles with one fan plant, lots more exhaust than one locomotive. There’d be a big one maybe two. Or use dual mode locomotives for the last mile. Electrifying the line is nice but not necessary.
Nathanael Reply:
June 24th, 2010 at 11:40 pm
Electrification is necessary to reduce expensive, shorten runtimes, and keep Caltrain alive anyway.
UP has a record of not wanting to operate under wire. So this may be plenty of justification for invoking 8.3(c) in any case.
Clem Reply:
June 22nd, 2010 at 9:58 pm
Not sure what your point was, again? Full grade separation was never on the table for Caltrain. That’s a high-speed rail requirement, but the CHSRA is not a party to the trackage rights agreement.
rafael Reply:
June 22nd, 2010 at 10:42 pm
Realistically, Caltrain would never be permitted to double its rush hour train frequency without full grade separation. Think about it: 10tph means a train passing any given remaining grade crossing every 3 minutes. Each gate crossing closure event takes what, 30 seconds? A minute? The cross roads would be blocked very frequently indeed. Motorists and cyclists could take a detour to the nearest crossing that was already separated, but that would cost them just as much or more time and also create new capacity bottlenecks there.
Even though Caltrain 2025 also calls for longer trains, the impact on cross traffic capacity absent full grade separation is the dirty little secret the railway never talked about. Instead, they position electrification as one of the necessary preconditions for switching to modern, lightweight rolling stock and level boarding, i.e. the aspects Johnny Passengers cares most about. Never mind that DMUs with EPA Tier 4 diesel engines would do very nicely everywhere except downtown SF.
Fortunately, cross traffic impacts are a moot point now that CHSRA is offering to fully grade separate not just the new tracks but also the old ones, too. That of course implies that it will be substantially harder to maintain access to all the existing freight spurs.
HSRforCali Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 7:32 am
Does Caltrain really need to provide service more frequent than every 10 minutes. Let’s try to be a realistic here; most regional rail systems usually provide service every 15-20 minutes and LRT systems generally provide service every 10 minutes, even during rush hour.
HSRforCali Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 7:33 am
We really need to be able to edit our comments. I forgot my question mark after the first sentence.
railfirst Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 7:47 am
Ideally, 4~8 express train and 4 local train are needed in the future of Caltrain. This means, Baby Bullet, Local-Express (All stop south of Redwood city) and Local (SF-RWC) each 15 min frequency. Local train can be short, but express need longer. Glade crossing around San Mateo may face long closure during rush hours.
I think some Japanese commuter line have 24~29 train/h (28~58 tph both direction) without grade separation.
Peter Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 7:55 am
But Caltrain is trying to fill in a stretch where Caltrain is the only game in town. BART only reaches down to Millbrae, and VTA Light Rail (for all the use it is) only reaches up to Mountain View.
rafael Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 9:29 am
Caltrain currently run 5 tph during rush hour, but that’s a mix of limited and baby bullet trains. Locals currently run off-peak and on weekends only.
The objective is to triple ridership by 2025 while keeping operating expenses almost level with the current situation. The peninsula counties simply aren’t prepared to keep subsidizing operations at the current levels.
Caltrain hopes to achieve this by speeding up locals to the point at which it no longer needs to offer express trains during rush hour just to retain ridership at the busiest stations. The logic behind that is that there are only so many additional commuters the service can attract, the bulk of ridership growth needs to come from stations that baby bullets don’t stop at today.
In addition, the plan is to have enough capacity in the system to run 10 tph with 50% more seats each than the current ones. They could also run e.g. 7.5 tph and 100% more seats, that’s mostly a function of available straight platform length. In any event, only time will tell if all those additional passengers really do show up. The biggest draw is supposed to be the downtown station in SF, though having BART in San Jose may also increase reverse commute volume. Fast locals will also make Caltrain more useful for commuters within the peninsula itself, i.e. average trip distance will go down. It may no longer be necessary to offer every passenger a seat.
In Europe, some regional trains do run at 7.5 minute intervals (8 tph) during rush hour. Then again, those countries tend to have far more extensive connecting local transit. Perhaps Caltrain could compensate for that to some extent by leveraging electric and/or folding bicycle technology, e.g. by offering annual pass customers a discount voucher on selected models.
Elizabeth Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 10:14 am
Transbay terminal is the event that is transformational for ridership numbers. The TBT people have some great data about the number of jobs within 1/2 mile of TBT vs 4th and King. I think it is something like 300k vs 100k.
Let us not assume that UP does not have a credible argument. Safety and/or capacity come to mind.
Brian Stanke Reply:
June 22nd, 2010 at 1:33 pm
So long as the CA HSR Authority designs to allow, or builds, double tracking of the freight lines there is no capacity issue. UP’s Central Valley and Coast lines are both single track, and UP has no plans to change that. There is NO future scenario in existence where they would have so much travel that they need MORE than double tracking.
As for safety HSR are very safe. UP freights may derail a lot, so the issue is the safety of UP trains, and the additional liability that they would incur by hitting the new HSR line above (they are already liable for derailing into existing properties). A solution needs to be worked out for that problem that makes derails less frequent, keeps most derails out of HSR tracks, and is economically fair to both UP and the State of CA/HSR operator. The Federal Government seems like the most appropriate moderator to craft such a compromise agreement.
rafael Reply:
June 22nd, 2010 at 8:45 pm
Agreed, the best way to avoid the additional liability that UPRR would incur is to further reduce the risk of serious derailments in the first place. First and foremost, that would be a safety issue. With CHSRA planning a system capable of 10+ trains per hour each way at 220mph in the LA-Fresno network core, the next HSR train would be just 0 to 3 minutes away from the site of a derailment.
Keeping hundreds of passengers from piling into derailed freight cars or spilled cargo would require reliably fast detection and emergency braking. At 220mph, HSR trains need more than a minute to come to a full stop, so in 33-50% of scenarios it would not even be possible to come to a full stop and avoid a potentially catastrophic follow-on accident.
Increasing maintenance on tracks and freight cars to reduce derailment risk would hurt the bottom line, so UPRR is trying to avoid those costs by insisting HSR use an alignment that is at least tens of feet away from the freight trains – laterally. Putting HSR on elevated structures actually increases UPRR’s liability because the damage caused by ramming a support column would be much costlier to repair than infrastructure at grade. It would also take longer to implement, increasing liabilities due to lost HSR business.
Fortunately, things are not quite as bleak as they seem. First, hazard = worst-case damage * risk of occurrence. HSR has operated in close physical proximity to freight trains in other countries for decades, without follow-on accidents of the type described above because it’s possible to reduce the occurrence risk to acceptable levels. Positive train control permits near-instantaneous emergency response, though trains do take a little bit of time to actually come to a full stop. The risk reduction problem therefore boils down to detecting and acting on freight derailments as early as possible. In most cases, freight derailments unfold over tens of seconds as an initial bogie that jumps the tracks triggers a cascade of follow-on events that may eventually lead to debris or cargo fouling adjacent track or ramming support structures.
Solving that may involve listening to the sound carried by the freight tracks and detecting anomalous acoustic signatures. Obviously, I’m not suggesting a union worker holding a stethoscope to the rails. Instead, you’d automate derailment detection by attaching suitable microphones at regular intervals, connected to (a) computer(s) running suitable software.
Sounds very sci-fi, but it’s actually very similar to existing commodity knock detection systems for the gasoline engines found in every passenger car and most light trucks. Those have to and do work very reliably on timescales of milliseconds, because serious knock can severely damage or ruin an engine running at high RPM in a matter of seconds. The key differences would be the communications distance between transducer and computer and, the acoustic signatures to look for. The former is a solved problem in railway signaling, the latter a matter of fine tuning and testing.
That, however, would entail expensive experiments: freight rail operators have no data on the acoustic signatures of derailments, transmitted as structure-borne sound via the rails. In addition, false alarms would be quite disruptive. That is in contrast to engines, for which the worst consequence is slightly increased fuel consumption and a slight loss of power for a very brief period of time.
Therefore, acoustic derailment detection via the rails would need to be supplemented with other, independent systems (e.g. visual track surveillance, sensors attached to freight bogies) to increase reliability, i.e. reduce the risk of false alarms or failures to detect. Each of these systems would have to be fast, though. In an HSR context, there really isn’t much time for independent confirmation of suspected derailment events – just a few seconds.
Brandon from San Diego Reply:
June 22nd, 2010 at 9:47 pm
Yes, I would agree – redundancy of safety systems is necessary.
rafael Reply:
June 22nd, 2010 at 10:18 pm
Yup, and you still need passive crash safety on top of the active systems, just in case it’s not possible to bring the train to a full stop in time. Impact absorbers at the cab ends plus crumple zones at the ends of cars, all designed to buckle locally and plastically. Sturdy couplings and interlocking buffers that prevent cars from riding up over each other. Articulated trainsets that are less prone to jackknifing. Standard stuff on modern HSR designs. Also handy if an HSR train derails, e.g. during an earthquake. Unlikely, but it has happened exactly once before.
It’s just that in an HSR context, not even UPRR operating on adjacent tracks could stick with the present FRA safety concept, i.e. antiquated signaling plus human-to-human communications between engineers and dispatchers plus low speeds plus low train frequencies plus mo’ shteel is mo’ betta. It would need to minimize derailment risks and maximize the chances of detecting and acting on any that still happen as quickly as possible. The associated R&D plus installation costs would have to be reflected in the price for the right of way.
Of course, if CHSRA really had to acquire a greenfield ROW immediately adjacent to UPRR tracks – at far greater cost and disruption – then UPRR would just have to deal with any associated new liability on its own dime.
Howard Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 1:16 am
The CHSRA could reduce the chance of a UP train derailment onto its high speed tracks by maintaining or paying UP to maintain the UP tracks next to high speed track to a higher level. This plus the CHSRA paying for an insurance policy to protect UP from liability should eliminate UP’s reason for objecting to high speed rail next to their tracks.
rafael Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 3:26 am
UPRR is liable for damages in the event that one of its trains derails and debris or cargo intrude on someone else’s property. If it is prepared to sell part of its ROW, the price should reflect the cost of maintenance and insurance premiums for a sufficient period of time. The terms and conditions should state that UPRR must actually do the maintenance and actually buy the insurance, otherwise UPRR’s trains – by its own admission – could be a hazard for HSR.
Again, if UPRR forces CHSRA to acquire greenfield ROWs next to its own, the public contribution toward mitigating the associated liabilities should be zero. FRA should not allow UPRR to dictate terms regarding how land it does not even own can or cannot be used. In addition, Congress should exempt the HSR ROW from the Class I freight operators’ powers of eminent domain.
Nathanael Reply:
June 24th, 2010 at 11:42 pm
We don’t assume it — the fact is that UP doesn’t have a credible argument.
(1) Safety. Everywhere *else* in the world it’s possible to run freight trains on parallel tracks near high speed trains safely. If UP is grossly incompetent as they claim they are, they shouldn’t be allowed to run freight trains at all.
(2) Capacity. What does this have to do with anything? HSR is going to be on parallel tracks near the freight tracks. UP is never going to need quad tracks for freight alone — there is nowhere in the *world* where this is needed outside yards.
New bill would prohibit SNCF from working with CA because they have ties to the Holocaust.
Guys, I don’t think any HSR company should work with the US since we rounded up the Japanese and put them in camps. This is especially important for Japan Rail.
Never mind the genocide practiced against Native Americans. This project keeps getting wackier and wackier.
Spokker Reply:
June 22nd, 2010 at 2:59 pm
Not prohibit, but make it more difficult.
rafael Reply:
June 22nd, 2010 at 9:02 pm
That’s if the bill passes. Holocaust survivors already have plenty of legal avenues for seeking financial compensation from companies that collaborated with the Nazis. The hard part is proving that they did so voluntarily. In the case of SNCF, that brings up the whole issue of the Vichy government.
Japan Railways was set up only after the war, but it was an amalgam of predecessor organizations that participated in that country’s war of aggression against the US and others. FS collaborated with Mussolini.
Many HSR vendors and operators can somehow be linked to fascist regimes that engaged in war against the US. Would you want to exclude all of them from consideration for California HSR on those grounds?
YesonHSR Reply:
June 22nd, 2010 at 10:25 pm
Lame whinners….
Palo Alto city council to discuss high-speed rail track alternatives
http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_15354919?nclick_check=1
http://tinyurl.com/hsranalysis
“The special meeting is being held [on Jun 22] to review the city’s draft comment letter [to ...] the authority’s [...] Preliminary Alternatives Analysis report.”
“The lack of adequate information regarding financial, environmental, and right-of-way impacts precludes a reasoned determination of preferred alternatives, both for the City and the public [...]”
“[...] the city said it cannot yet take a position on what it would most prefer of the three below-grade alternatives — open trench, covered trench or deep tunnel [...] [It] found the aerial viaduct, elevated berm and at-grade options to be unacceptable.”
Note that CHSRA is looking for comments on how to run tracks through the city, not for permission. As we’ve said before, trenching is a dicey option in this neck of the woods because of all the gravity-drained conduits crossing under the right of way (incl. some subterranean creeks, probably some sewer mains). It’s possible to divert those around a trench, but sooner or later one of those diversions will fail after a heavy winter storm and you’ll have local flooding. Also, as Clem has pointed out esewhere, trench construction requires more ROW width than above-ground solutions. The El Palo Alto tree would probably have to be sacrificed for a trench.
A bored tunnel solution would need to extend much further beyond Palo Alto city limits, for both technical and political reasons. Construction nuisance and permanent noise impacts (tunnel boom) would be concentrated at the tunnel portal locations – Palo Alto’s gain would be another city’s pain. Above all, the cost would be extremely high for just two tracks, forcing CHSRA to abandon the objective of also grade separating the legacy tracks in that stretch.
That means Caltrain and diesel-based UPRR would almost certainly remain at grade, with the former still electrified and looking to increase rush hour train frequency to 10tph by 2025. Gates at the retained grade crossings at Palo Alto Ave, Churchill Ave, Meadow and Charleston would be closed twice as frequently. The Churchill and Meadow crossings are heavily used by teenagers cycling to school, the latter is the site of a recent series of tragic suicides. Retaining any grade crossings, but especially those, would prevent Caltrain from leveraging the off-the-shelf, proven signaling system that CHSRA will be purchasing. Instead, they would need to press on with expensive, high-risk R&D on the homegrown CBOSS technology. Without positive train control, Caltrain’s mixed traffic waiver is worthless. Without the waiver, it can’t buy non-compliant rolling stock and the FRA-compliant electric gear is more expensive to operate. Thus, Palo Alto’s prevarication may yet end up killing Caltrain, which must sharply reduce operating subsidies per passenger if it is to survive in the long term. Between Univ. Ave, Calif. Ave and San Antonio Rd, the Palo Alto stops generate roughly 5000 boardings per day.
Conclusion: all four tracks belong at grade in downtown Palo Alto. Fully enclose them above ground if you must to get a handle on noise, but stop trying to go underground in suburbia. That way madness lies. Instead, build road under- or overpasses, incl. a few dedicated to ped/bike traffic. Yes, there will be functional impacts on the turnoffs between cross streets and Alma St southbound. Some traffic will have to be diverted.
“The city has not taken a position on whether it would prefer to host a high-speed rail station, saying information provided by the rail authority on station configurations and financial and environmental impacts is incomplete.”
More evidence that the city’s infamous “planning process” is in full effect: analysis shall continue indefinitely to avoid ever having to put any stakes in the ground. Let’s hope RWC and MV are more decisive in their respective comments on the AA.
rafael Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 3:12 am
Btw, the file returned by
http://tinyurl.com/hsranalysis
is in PDF format. You may need to append “.pdf” to its name to open it. Basically, the position is “put HSR underground if you can afford to do it without a penny from the city, otherwise FOAD”.
If this eventually boils down to tunnel-or-nothing in PAMPA, it may indeed be necessary to ditch Pacheco in favor of Altamont. Burlingame and San Mateo are also difficult, so that doesn’t necessarily translate to a new Bay crossing at Dumbarton. Instead, CHSRA should then consider cutting across either immediately south of Millbrae or (preferably) between SF and Oakland Coliseum/OAK via Point Alameda, which should then be developed.
That would leave TJPA, SFO and Caltrain in the lurch, not to mention San Jose and Gilroy/Monterey. It might also mean forgoing already-awarded ARRA funds for the SF to SJ portion of the network, because it is very unlikely that the requisite environmental review for an alternate route could be completed by the drop-dead date of 30 Sep 2012. Perhaps FRA would be prepared to let CHSRA reprogram the funds to the Central Valley stretch, which will be needed for drafting new rules to operate the trains at 220mph.
All that because of Palo Alto?
HSRforCali Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 7:42 am
The SF via Oakland idea is what I’ve been thinking about. How expensive would it be to route the HSR alignment up the East Bay from San Jose through a new Transbay Tube to TBT?
Peter Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 7:52 am
I think a new Transbay Tube would likely blow the budget for the project given modern seismic codes, especially if it’s set up for more than two tracks (i.e. bigger).
rafael Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 10:05 am
I doubt they’d sink another immersed tube into the Bay mud, precisely because of seismic safety, anchor dragging, ships sinking and other potential hazards. Instead, they’d just use modern TBMs to bore through the bedrock.
Crossing the water wouldn’t even be the most expensive part of such a project – the approaches on either side would be. Again, bored tunnels may be the cheapest alternative for that. On the SF end, it might make sense to connect at 2nd/Townsend rather than at the east end of the TBT tracks.
BART has grandiose plans for a four-track combo tunnel. It might make sense to segregate those, given that it will want the SF approach to be under Mission St, which no longer works for HSR and Caltrain.
jim Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 2:42 pm
A perhaps not so minor point is that the East Bay right of way between San Jose and Oakland is BNSF, not UP. BNSF has been more cooperative with HSR, at least up til now.
If the alternatives turn out to be tunneling half the distance along the Peninsula or tunneling under the Bay, tunneling under the Bay might win.
What would be the mechanism for bringing an East Bay alternative into the environmental review process? Would it have to start over? I take it that adding an East Bay alternative to San Jose-San Francisco wouldn’t entail revisiting the Merced-San Jose piece and the decision over which pass.
rafael Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 3:39 pm
“the East Bay right of way between San Jose and Oakland is BNSF”
Uhm, where do you have that from? BNSF owns and operates Richmond to Bakersfield. Everything south of Richmond belongs to UPRR, except for the BART rights of way and, the WPML that VTA purchased for the purpose of extending BART.
jim Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 4:55 pm
I must be misinformed.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 6:06 pm
Good God.
How many thousand times does this nonsense have to be brought up?
The world’s finest transportation planners at Caltrain and the TJPA killed off a non-terminal Transbay Station and killed off the only possible SF-Oakland connection in 2003 through their mindbogglingly unprofessional EIR alternatives “analysis” and their “choice” of a Locally Preferred Alternative.
http://transbaycenter.org/uploads/2009/10/LPA_Rev3-21-03.pdf
Stop it! It’s dead. Dead as a doornail. It’s not going to happen, no matter now often or how much people ignore simple facts. It can’t physically happen any more without removal of hundreds of millions of dollars of newly-constructed high rise buildings. So stop wasting even a millisecond thinking about it. BART combined with buses on the Bay Bridge (not trains: trains on the bridge were explicitly and permanently killed off by MTC staff in 1999) are the SF-Oakland transit connections now, 20 years from now, and 50 years from now.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 6:29 pm
Probably 100-125 years from now too. Too bad I can’t find plans for Union Station in Manhattan. You can do all sorts of things with eXclusive Bus Lanes. But then you face the problem of where to have the buses stop etc. Tearing down high rise buildings for a bus station is just as expensive as tearing them down for a train station. so that may not work out too well. They will have a pretty useless park on top though.
Peter Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 6:34 pm
That effing park. Have they figured out yet whether they will have to place the support columns insid the trainbox from the outset? Or will they be able to delay that so that they get one last chance to fix/mess up (even more) the station throat?
jimsf Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 7:04 pm
ok its not an effing park, its a much needed park in the part of town that is most devoid of park space and it was a nearly mandatory part of any project’s being approved there. I mean central park in new york is pretty much taking up what would otherwise be the most valuable acreage on earth, but no is bad mouthing it. You folks should be a lot more worried about whether the project will ever actually get built at all, rather than quibbling over details about rooftop parks. Isn’t construction on high speed rail suppose to start in 2012? and isn’t that about 18 months from now? And is there any sign at all that any digging will commence on schedule let alone having trains operating by 2020. As much as I’d like to see it, It looks more like ever accumulating delays due to various row issues along every inch of the system will be the norm. The last few blocks in SF is the very least of your worries.
Alon Levy Reply:
June 24th, 2010 at 3:29 am
What you’re getting isn’t Central Park. It’s Madison Square Garden.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
June 24th, 2010 at 8:39 am
It’s not the Garden, people aren’t going to take the train in from the suburbs to go to the park teetering atop the bus lanes. People do come in from the ‘burbs to go to Madison Square Garden.
It’s definitely not the Port Authority Bus Terminal. More like a George Washington Bridge Bus Terminal.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 7:35 pm
The bus part of the Transbay Terminal is more or less OK (with the exception being their crazy scheme for the inbound and outbound bus flows to cross each other at grade on the approach ramp, rather than have a flyover. $4 billion of your tax dollars, and they still design in head-ons.)
There are rumblings of an exclusive bus lane on the Bay Bridge. Whether sooner or later, that will come.
The stupid park in the sky is an irrelevance, except for driving up costs (literally through the roof), making the structure extremely massive, serving no purpose, enclosing bus exhaust to make the passenger experience miserable, and being guaranteed to be a white elephant. About what you’d expect in San Francisco.
It’s the rail part — everything below grade — that is an unmitigated (and completely avoidable) catastrophe: both for rail operations and for passenger circulation. Crucifixion is too kind a fate for any of those involved.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 8:28 pm
Put in an XBL and if it gets used half as much as the Lincoln Tunnel XBL…. where are they going to put the buses and the passengers on the buses….
jimsf Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 8:41 pm
and next on the agenda is the erection of giant “sf haters get out” signs on the 80, 280 and 101.
Jon Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 7:32 pm
It can’t physically happen any more without removal of hundreds of millions of dollars of newly-constructed high rise buildings.
Just to clarify. Are you referring to the buildings located in the three blocks bounded by Mission, Main, Howard and Embarcadaro? Seems like these would be the buildings to be tunneled under for an extension to from Transbay to Oakland.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 10:04 pm
301 Mission Streets is the killer. (Note to Google Streetview Tourists: what you see is a building several hundred feet lower than today’s.)
There was also a feasible way to slightly but very helpfully open up the approach to the station by following a right of way between Second and Hawthorne Streets (“Vassar Lane” is the public street you can find on a map) but subsequent development (631 Folsom Street) and development entitlements (222 Second Street, and more) and less than zero effort from the TJPA caused these to be lost.
Anything else — like the make-believe tail track nonsense up Main Street, featuring even worse curvatures, platform length limitations, and even more constricted throughput than we are blessed with today by TJPA/PTG/CHSRA/PCJPB’s finest — just isn’t geometrically feasible. The throughput constraints (low approach speed, short platforms and trains, insufficient through tracks) are so sever that connecting a $14 billion tunnel to one end is nonsense: buses have higher capacity.
There was only one really good way to put a station at the Transbay site, the “Second-Mission” oblique station (nb suggested by the public during EIR scoping, not staff-developed, hence blown off), and it’s gone. Getting from there to a long-future trans-bay crossing would have been a heroically expensive engineering proposition, but at least it was feasible. No more.
There was a slightly less than wretched way to salvage something from the wreckage up to a few months ago, but none of the parties involved care or show any understanding, and the worst possible project is being built. Just how we like it around here.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 11:27 pm
buses have higher capacity
Assuming you can get the buses to the destination and once there, there is a place for the passengers to get on and off the bus.
Alon Levy Reply:
June 24th, 2010 at 3:25 am
I’ll bite: how is your most recent proposal “slightly less than wretched” compared to the oblique option? Its platforms are longer and less curved, and the minimum curvature is slightly higher. Is the problem the lack of through-service to the East Bay?
Jon Reply:
June 24th, 2010 at 10:25 am
Yup, I can see 301 Mission out my office window right now and it’s a biggie. However I don’t see how it prevents further tunneling to the East Bay given that it’s on the north west side of the new terminal, and we want to be heading east.
According to the most recent drawings (here, page 5) the platforms will be extended out to Main St underneath the skyscraper at 201 Mission. The slightly less wretched version you link to is essentially the same in this respect, except that the tracks curve further east to avoid tunneling under the hi-rise section of 201 Mission.
CAHSR don’t seem to think tunneling under 201 Mission is a problem. Either they’re right, or they’re wrong, and the phase 2 extension will have to be redesigned in a manner similar to your slightly less wretched version. But either way, why is it impossible for the planned end of the tracks at Main St to connect to a new Transbay Tube?
Dan S. Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 8:40 pm
Good God indeed. Apparently this nonsense has be brought up just about as many times as Richard’s hyperbolic language-assaulting superiority-asserting counter-rants. Good thing he doesn’t fall for the same fallacy of restating old, tired tropes! I wouldn’t expect anything less from such self-proclaimed world’s best blog-contributing opinionators!
Nathanael Reply:
June 24th, 2010 at 11:50 pm
Instead of running up the East Bay and doing a twist to head for a new Transbay Tunnel, all the proposals for a new Transbay Tunnel I’ve seen run from Stockton (via BNSF up to at least Antioch).
Oddly enough the new Transbay Tunnel isn’t that expensive (compared to HSR in general) — the expensive part is putting in the stations in San Fransisco and Oakland (and nobody seriously thinks it would be wise to build such a tunnel *without* putting stations in both San Francisco and Oakland). Such stations would have to be quite deep underground and the Oakland one was looking particularly difficult.
Peter Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 7:50 am
PAMPA (Yay, my acronym stuck!) needs to realize that they don’t hold veto powers. All that you can do with a CEQA challenge is delay a project. You can’t kill it with that alone. You would need to gather the political willpower to kill the project, which I don’t see appearing at this stage of the project.
Also, changing from Pacheco to Altamont at this stage of the game will do nothing other than delay things by YEARS. Fremont and Pleasanton would fight just as hard against an alignment through their locales as PAMPA is. Decisions must be made at some point and those decisions have consequences…
rafael Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 9:34 am
Oh, I agree, switching to Altamont this late in the game would indeed delay the project by several years. Then again, lawsuits related to eminent domain and/or reverse condemnation can also cost years.
I was merely trying to paint a picture of just how many other cities and transportation authorities PAMPA would hit over the head with a 2-by-4 if it took a hard bored-tunnel-or-nothing line. So far, Palo Alto hasn’t crossed that rubicon.
Peter Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 9:47 am
But those lawsuits wouldn’t delay the project…
Clem Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 12:13 pm
Then again, lawsuits related to eminent domain and/or reverse condemnation can also cost years.
This is a common misconception. Once things get to that point, the actual exercise of ED is more often than not badabing, badaboom.
it is very unlikely that the requisite environmental review for an alternate route could be completed by the drop-dead date of 30 Sep 2012.
As noted repeatedly at the last CHSRA operations committee meeting, it is increasingly unlikely that the requisite environmental review for the nominal route (up the peninsula) could be completed by the drop-dead date of 30 Sep 2012.
Nathanael Reply:
June 24th, 2010 at 11:51 pm
The Altamont route is DOA. It’s not fast enough, the ROW is not available, there are even MORE NIMBYs, and getting across the Bay is impractical and environmentally unsound.
A further-north route SF-Oakland-Stockton remains technically possible.
Nadia Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 7:54 am
Mt. View’s draft comments are here: http://laserfiche.mountainview.gov/weblink7/docview.aspx?id=50747
They also prefer a below grade solution
FYI – Palo Alto hired Hatch Mott MacDonald to do a Peer Review of the AA – their presentation is here:
http://www.cityofpaloalto.org/civica/filebank/blobdload.asp?BlobID=21229
Peter Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 8:01 am
Ok, so is anyone surprised that Mountain View prefers a below grade solution? That was a given, I believe.
The presentation of the Peer Review is not quite clear. Are these alternatives that were and were not carried forward the ones that Hatch Mott MacDonald felt should not be carried forward?
Nadia Reply:
June 24th, 2010 at 7:22 am
Page 7 shows that HMMD feels that there are versions of a trench and tunnel that the Authority has not explored – for instance a shallower trench under the San Francisquito creek or a tunnel that is not as deep as what was in the Prelim AA. Clearly HMMD is in the business of tunnels, so they have a bias – but do people agree with their findings?
jim Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 2:29 pm
It might also mean forgoing already-awarded ARRA funds for the SF to SJ portion of the network
I don’t think the funds are yet allocated to particular portions of the network. $1.85B has been committed to CHSRA. The next step is for CHSRA and FRA to execute an agreement which will say what the funds will be used for and set up intermediate milestones. That agreement could dedicate the funds to just the Central Valley, if that made sense to CHSRA and FRA. No-one (particularly not FRA) wants the funds dedicated to a segment that might not complete its environmental review by the drop-dead date.
rafael Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 3:32 pm
Well, the ARRA grant application actually specified not just the three corridors the federal money would be spent on but component projects within them. FRA set up a complex set of rules to manage the applications process and, it had to turn a lot of them down as the total requested was 7 times the amount available. If California is allowed to reprogram ARRA dollars, that could trigger a lawsuit from one of the projects that was turned down on the basis that California’s project was further along.
jim Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 4:50 pm
But the Feds didn’t fund the entire application. Nor did they explicitly fund a particular subapplication (as they did with the $400K for TBT). So there’s room to manoeuver. California wouldn’t be reprogramming ARRA dollars. They would be concentrating ARRA dollars on a subset of the projects that they applied for.
YesonHSR Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 7:49 pm
It needs to go the the Central Valley segment between Fresno and Bakersfield along the BNSF..its a good choice for the test segment 98miles long and that amount we received would be able to build all of it without breaking into the bond money..the SF-SJ and the 3 other segments have too much issues at this point and the valley needs the jobs now
adirondacker12800 Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 6:55 am
That means Caltrain and diesel-based UPRR would almost certainly remain at grade
They could just fiddle with your Firebird concept and run all the trains through the tunnel. It would mean those towns lose their Caltrain stop but such is life….
rafael Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 10:16 am
No, Palo Alto and Menlo Park are high ridership stations for Caltrain. Those town wouldn’t want to lose that service altogether, though Firebird would permit a mix of express service patterns. That means only a subset of all Caltrains would stop at any given group of stations.
Ergo, Caltrain could run 5tph Firebirds above ground through PAMPA (serving those stations) and an additional 5tph through a tunnel shared with HSR (serving other stations further north and south). The upshot would be faster line haul to SF and SJ for everyone plus higher frequencies at secondary stations. Primary stations like Palo Alto Univ. Ave would retain existing service frequency, i.e. Caltrain could increase service frequency on the line without increasing the number of gate crossings per hour at e.g. Churchill Ave in Palo Alto.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 10:33 am
If they don’t want to lose the service then the people who want it to continue are going to have to speak up.
rafael Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 1:34 pm
Not really. No-one is proposing to terminate Caltrain service at Palo Alto Univ. Ave as long as Caltrain exists at all. It’s the second busiest station on the line.
All I’m saying is that if Palo Alto demands a bored tunnel alignment, it will be two bores only. By default, those would be dedicated to HSR and not shared with Caltrain nor UPRR, which means the tracks at grade would not go away.
In an open trench option, CHSRA could probably afford to include the legacy tracks – though it would still cost a lot more than keeping the tracks at grade. Unfortunately, trenching presents hydrological problems in that stretch.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 1:52 pm
It wouldn’t terminate at Palo Alto, it would bypass it in the nice tunnels that the Stone Pine Lane Gang wants. They have to examine all the alternatives if they examine tunnels. The cheapest option is to discontinue train service. It should be raised as legitimate alternative. A nice contrast to the ones now screaming about how quiet, clean electric trains just a few feet from where trains run now, is going to be the end of the world…. I’m sure the Mayor and the City Council members who are supporting a tunnel are just chomping at the bit to tell everyone why discontinuing service is such a good idea… and the real estate agents are just dying to start putting “20 minute bus ride to Caltrain” in the ads instead of “walk to Caltrain”
Nadia Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 2:56 pm
CARRD has on its website a map of the land take implications for 3 of the 4 intersections in Palo Alto if the road went under the train at grade (which is less than if it went over):
http://www.calhsr.com/environmental-review/carrds-eir-reviews/
There is more “collateral damage” at Churchill because there are several flag lots that would lose their access. This map was reviewed by an HSR engineer and dubbed “a good representation” of what it would mean.
Peter Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 3:08 pm
Note that this could be minimized by constructing a split-grade option. However, this would run counter to the “NO BERMS!!!” mentality on the Peninsula. 10 foot berm would mean far less impacts without being as imposing as an elevated structure. The scare tactics alleging plans for a 30 foot “Berlin Wall” down the Peninsula do more damage than good. They will get part of what they asked for: no berm. But they won’t get a tunnel. That’s financially out of the question. Most likely result will either be an aerial (more noise, looks completely out of place, and could look ugly) or at-grade.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 4:56 pm
Really odd that when they were going to be paying for it – I’m assuming they they expect CAHSR to pay for all the tunneling etc. – they were quite content with above ground solutions
http://www.menlopark.org/departments/eng/GradeSeparationSupplement.pdf
Peter Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 5:01 pm
Yeah, I keep reminding PAMPA people on this blog of that document, but they always ignore it for some reason…
JJ Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 3:23 pm
City of San Mateo: http://www.cityofsanmateo.org/DocumentView.aspx?DID=6920
Tilton to 12th Ave, Downtown San Mateo and Adjoining Neighborhoods
Quote: This segment has sections with extremely narrow right of way. The City requests that evaluation of the “stacked covered tunnel” be included as part of the Alternatives Analysis
This choice followed the San Mateo Community Workshop, where five out of five citizen teams, who had a choice, selective the Dual Stack alternative (Stacked Covered Tunnel/HatTrench)
JJ Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 3:58 pm
Redwood City: http://www.redwoodcity.org/clerks/weblink/DocView.aspx?id=55878&dbid=0 7A page 53 and 54.
During the Council Session, the Deep Tunnel [All trains] option was discounted by staff as deep Caltrain Stations are cost prohibitive, resulting in CHSRA dropping this option.
What was presented during the session was the ‘stitched’ plan, which supports a combination of stacked [HatTrench] or 4-track trench, whichever results in the least private property taking [HatTrench @ 67' and 4-Track @ 100+ feet].
Details: Traveling southward, transition to trench before Cordilleras Creek (covered), open/covered to Whipple, covered through Caltrain station to Main Street, open/covered to Chestnut Street. South of Chestnut Street to Redwood Junction – Caltrain begins transition from trench to at-grade alignment to connect with the rail spur. – HSR: remain in open/covered trench or begin transition to match alignment with neighboring communities.
JJ Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 4:18 pm
City of Menlo Park
http://service.govdelivery.com/docs/CAMENLO/CAMENLO_101/CAMENLO_101_20100622_070000_en.pdf
HatTrench – Page A1 – Attachment A
“2. Stacked Option _ The AA analyzes a four track system for each alternative, but the cross sections depict stacked alternatives with the HST below Caltrain with two tracks for each. A more detailed analysis of the stacked alternatives needs to be provided because these options minimize impacts to right-of-way and temporary impacts”
JJ Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 4:37 pm
City of Atherton
http://www.ci.atherton.ca.us/city-council/3182.pdf Item 21 Letter on HSR Peninsula Project AA Draft
HatTrench
Preliminary Alternatives Analysis Report Comments : Page 9 “At the conclusion of the October workshop, the Atherton group expressed a strong desire to have both high speed rail and Caltrain underground in a trench stacked with Caltrain above high speed rail.”
Preferred Vertical Alignment
“As the preferred vertical alignment Atherton strongly favors undergrounding of tracks and electric power conduits in a tunnel or trench with cross streets at grade level. ”
Peter Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 4:59 pm
In case you haven’t yet, check out http://caltrain-hsr.blogspot.com/2009/11/focus-on-atherton.html for a discussion on the HAT Trench. It appears to me to be one of those solutions looking for a problem. It has all the problems posed by tunnels combined with those posed by trenches.
JJ Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 7:35 pm
Thanks Peter, old post, seen it.
The AA included the Dual Stack [HatTrench] alternative, Appendix C, Figure CCB-3. Take a look at the Comments I just posted from all the cities. Every city has spent considerable time talking to consituents, holding workshops, having a robust community discussion, and not all of them are anti-HSR.
Peter, which Alignment Alternative do you propose that meets their concerns?
Peter Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 8:56 pm
Quite honestly, I think the option that was eliminated because everyone was flipping out about it would be the best solution: a retained fill berm. It would look less hideous than an aerial, it would fit in better with the landscape, it would dampen noise better, and, last but definitely not least, it wouldn’t blow the budget. It would also enable split-grade grade separations to lessen the eminent domain impacts to the community.
It was held up as the Anti-Christ because it was the most visible target. for opponents of the project to fight.
Dan S. Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 8:27 pm
“The preferable options for the City of Palo Alto only include vertical alignment options that place all HSR, Caltrain, and freight train tracks below grade and that maintain all existing at grade roadway configurations at existing crossings. These preferable options would have the least impact on the residents and businesses of the City of Palo Alto, including avoidance of significant secondary impacts of and right-of-way needs for grade separations.”
Isn’t it true that a trench alignment would have significantly greater right-of-way requirements than an elevated structure? Hello? :-) PA, if you’re worried about the neighbors losing their backyards, you might want to take a second look at elevateds.
“Maintaining existing at-grade roadways provides greater connectivity between neighborhoods on either side of the tracks, is more pedestrian and bicycle friendly, and is less disruptive to the
community.”
That’s true, if the alternative option is to reduce the number of crossings of the right-of-way. But what options that were presented would have done this?? Didn’t all the elevated proposals maintain all current crossings? And it’s pretty easy to put additional bike/ped x-ings under an elevated, if you’re so concerned about connectivity.
They go on to mention that noise and vibration analysis is not adequate to their needs, and in general, I would agree to this criticism of the CHSRA’s process so far. (Is that the right acronym? I always screw it up.) The HSR folks (Hi Mr. Diridon) need to wake up and realize that CA really does need its hands held, tantrums assuaged, emotions acknowledged, ignorance educated, etc, etc, etc, in order to get this train built. There should be simulations and audio files and CG renderings to show reasonable audio and vibration effects of HSR by now, even if they don’t serve the purpose of required environmental review processes. There should be like 10 CG renderings of nice-looking elevateds and at-grades with up-sell options like sound walls and the blog-favorite triple-paned glass enclosures.
After all, we’re not dealing with a population that is used to the benefits (and costs) of standard industrial-nation transportation infrastructure. We’re dealing with California! ;-)
But in general, this document comes across as a big, counter-productive, childish whine. Their perspective seems to be that their preference is for the train tracks to magically disappear and for someone else to pay for it. Gee, thanks for that. I appreciate your input. (This is from a former PA resident and from someone who absolutely loves that city.)
UP is very protective of its RoW because it knows that once it is gone, it can never be got back. When was the last time a railroad aquired a brand new RoW anywhere in the USA of significant length? There are plenty of cases of substanital upgrades (in the Powder River Basin, there were single track 10mph branch lines that got turned into four track main lines), but never anything completely new.
What the CHSRA has to do convince UP that it will suffer no finanical loss from use of its RoW, nor will the HSR line prevent future freight upgrades.
synonymouse Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 9:38 am
If you haven’t figured it out yet, in a perfect world according to the CHSRA, the UP would simply be seized and converted from freight to passenger. The UP, of course, sees this and that is why it opposes hsr, tacitly probably in principle.
The best approach is back to Altamont, I-5 and Tejon, as far removed from the UP as engineeringly possible.
Peter Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 9:58 am
… Do you make these up in your sleep? No one wants to shut down UPRR. They provide a very valuable service to the country.
Nathanael Reply:
June 24th, 2010 at 11:53 pm
You’re still a troll. Building a pair of passenger tracks next to UP’s pair of freight tracks is not “seizing” UP.
rafael Reply:
June 23rd, 2010 at 10:22 am
CHSRA can’t guarantee UPRR’s future earnings. It doesn’t need to, as long as there’s enough room for UPRR to double track, the anyhow-mandated PTC will dramatically increase the capacity of its existing main lines.
The real issue is the amount of lateral space UPRR is currently wasting to avoid liabilities in the event of a derailment or cargo spill.
Nathanael Reply:
June 24th, 2010 at 11:54 pm
“The real issue is the amount of lateral space UPRR is currently wasting to avoid liabilities in the event of a derailment or cargo spill.”
Yep, you nailed it.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
June 25th, 2010 at 12:41 am
You’ve been at the Koolaid again…
The issue of UP obstructionism is simple – lack of passenger and freight rail interoperability. It is causeed by several reasons:
1) regulations that force passenger rolling stock on general railway system to be inefficient so the cars can be arranged to 2-mile-long trains (by requiring buffering strength equal to what AAR coupler can transmit). Economic passenger operation isn’t possible with such overdesigned trains, but when operator chooses to operate lighter, equally safe, all sorts of trouble arise:
- there are no U.S. technical standards for such lighter trains
- there is legal vacuum of inter-running currently compliant and non-compliant rolling stock in single corridor and there’s no wonder UP tries hard to avoid another Littleton
- the only current way of mixed service is guaranteed time separation, impairing both compliant/freight and non-compliant/passenger service
2) inherently different nature of passenger and freight rail operations. Passenger rail needs to be fast, frequent and precise to be viable. OTOH, freight trains must run after their load gathers (i.e. unpredictably) and with as continuous speed profile as possible (aka with minimum braking; to be as energy efficient as possible). This effectively means that if there is single line with non-negligible amounts of both passenger and freight traffic, either passenger or freight operations are expensive and inefficient. In case of Europe, it’s freight rail, in case of USA, it’s passenger rail.
3) when freight RR sells part of it’s ROW, they risk they won’t be able to reach their customers in the future. Either because they wouldn’t be allowed to cross the ROW they sold for reasons in my point 1, or because there just wouldn’t be enough slots for crossing path
4) the freight RRs must keep their costs at minimum, because they are competing against subsidized trucks. In the past, they were forced to deelectrify and rip up tracks to avoid excessive property taxes. Trackage rights for passenger operations are essentially another burden for them because it takes capacity that isn’t economical to expand
Without getting all this stuff straight, UP’s stance is unlikely to change and BNSF’s friendly approach is unlikely to remain the same in long term. Possible things to change include:
Ad 1) There is pretty obvious way out of this crap situation – set up technical standards and legal framework that would allow operation of safer and lighter rolling stock on general railway system without any waivers. Good route could be to adopt EN 15227 with several modifications (like change of deformable buffer positions so they engage with end sills of existing locomotives) and to limit trailing load behind such lighter vehicles so they can be safely arranged into single consist with FRA-compliant cars
Ad 2) When there’s being new passenger service set up using freight tracks or ROW, make sure that freight rail won’t lose the capacity it already has – either by signalling improvements or by constructing flyovers and other structures that eliminate bottlenecks
Ad 3) When trying to acquire freight RR’s ROW (or building brand-new one next to it), steps should be taken to make room for future capacity improvement to keep both sides of ROW reasonably accessible for freight RR. With peak oil already in vicinity of their long-term plans, the freight RRs would be dumb if they wouldn’t protect their ROWs
Ad 4) get satellite toll system up and running so trucks pay wear and tear of roads they cause, and simultaneously make standards stricter for track geometry and freight cars state of repair. Both measures should have some transition period so industries have enough time to adapt to changes.
Then there is stuff like 1 % grade limit requested to keep Caltrains line accessible to freight. It should be noted that even if grades are steeper, it’s unlikely that it would impair freight operation, because total elevation change is fairly limited, so freight train is likely to be longer than the ramp itself, and then the tractive effort increase is the same regardless of actual gradient (F = m*g*l*s; if you increase gradient “s”, the length “l” decreases reciprocally).
Nathanael Reply:
June 24th, 2010 at 11:56 pm
“Without getting all this stuff straight, UP’s stance is unlikely to change and BNSF’s friendly approach is unlikely to remain the same in long term. ”
Your politics are wrong. Without getting all this stuff straight, UP is likely to be seized and BNSF is likely to remain friendly (and profitable).
“Ad 3) When trying to acquire freight RR’s ROW (or building brand-new one next to it), steps should be taken to make room for future capacity improvement to keep both sides of ROW reasonably accessible for freight RR.”
Already generally done. The demands for *massive* spacing between freight and passenger tracks from some of the freights (not BNSF, note) is just abusive “we have a right to derail our trains as often as possible” nonsense.
Alon Levy Reply:
June 25th, 2010 at 6:13 am
Who the hell has money to seize UP?