Has the Bay Area “Missed the boat” on Passenger Rail?
It’s about time more people started challenging the grip that NIMBYs appear to have over passenger rail projects in the Bay Area. At a time when Northern California appears to have abandoned mass transit, as Southern California and the Central Valley take leadership in building passenger rail infrastructure, the Bay Area might be left behind at a crucial moment in history. Rising oil prices, the costs of traffic congestion, and the need to address climate change through sustainably-powered transportation are all combining to make development of improved passenger rail, including high speed rail, a necessity for the Bay Area’s future prosperity.
The increasing ability of a few privileged NIMBYs to obstruct the construction of that future is starting to get noticed beyond this blog. Drew Voros, business editor for the Oakland Tribune, has a new column up today that directly confronts the NIMBYs and reminds the Bay Area of the need to think about the whole region’s economy, and not just of a very small number of critics:
Trains in 19th century California literally dictated frontier fortunes. If railroads bypassed your town, economic doom was inevitable. Begging and bribery were not out the question; it was a matter of survival.
But in the 21st century, the Bay Area’s civic love for one of our most important transportation ingredients has faded like an old newspaper photograph. The rail industry still delivers economic benefits, it’s just that our civic leaders’ pipedreams don’t include train tracks.
This mentality is to our economic detriment.
Last year, Peninsula cities dismissed and dissuaded billions of federal and state taxpayer dollars from being spent here on the $10 billion, voter-approved, high-speed rail project that will be built somewhere in California.
Maybe you missed the headlines on this economic debacle.
NIMBY cities built a legal roadblock to prevent the first portion of the California High Speed Rail Project from starting in the Bay Area. The unsightly infrastructure didn’t pass their architectural sniff test.
Voros hits on an important element of the problem. NIMBY arguments against trains get traction not because of any sympathy for wealthy landowners on the Peninsula, but because a surprising number of people in the Bay Area do not see passenger rail as being a significant part of the region’s mobility or its future prosperity. The marginalization of trains, even in the Bay Area, has opened the door for NIMBYs to claim that high speed trains won’t make money (they will), or that people won’t ride them (which is absurd, as anyone who’s been on BART, Caltrain, the Muni Metro, or the Capitol Corridor knows). They claim the project might go over budget without ever offering any actual detailed analysis of the project plans to explain this charge – and yet other Bay Area transportation projects that went over budget, like the East Span of the Bay Bridge, had their costs covered through means that did not cause mass suffering (people are still able to pay bridge tolls, after all).
There’s no doubt that the question of how to best build the HSR project, particularly its vertical alignments, is an important one to get right. There are legitimate differences about whether to build a trench, a tunnel, or a viaduct on the Peninsula. Each has their pluses and minuses. But those should be assessed rationally and sensibly. Instead, NIMBYs and their allies prefer to spread fear, uncertainty, and doubt and to attack the entire project as a whole, even though polling shows large majorities of their neighbors still support HSR. This does not help matters, and makes it more difficult to produce effective planning and budgeting for the project.
So it is good that people like Voros are speaking up in support of the project and against the NIMBYs who do not have the region’s interests in mind. There’s still a lot of work to be done to build this project the right way. Let’s rally Californians together to make that happen, rather than let the NIMBYs slow the project’s construction any further.
there needs to be pushback at the ballot box. time to organize on the peninsula and get the silent majority to tell the NIMBY minority to STFU and punish those who would destroy a generation of prosperity.
YesonHSR Reply:
January 19th, 2011 at 7:48 am
Well I don’t think a new vote is needed as 2008 was a solid yes on high-speed rail whats needed is more organized pro-high-speed rail demonstrations that the media will see and report … That same media is what gave the NIMBYs their power … 10 people showed up to protest and KABC news was there. That the same thing can be done for pro-high-speed rail demonstrations and as previously stated a huge amount of people want high-speed rail come to San Francisco. Now the second point of this article states that the Bay Area missed the construction actually I believe it’s starting out in the best possible spot to build a statewide system A true 220 MPH segment and not some glamorized commuter line that could have sucked up all the money before we laid a mile in the Valley though the article did good in pointing out the damage and nonsense a small group of nimbys can do if left unchecked and not rebutted.
I don’t know if the NIMBY’s are going to succeed in the long run, but I kind of think not. They don’t really have any legal reasons for blocking it no matter how much they try to get their arguments to stick. I’m hoping (and believing) that the judges will continue to throw out their lawsuits.
They did succeed in getting the initial HSR work moved to the Central Valley, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing for HSR. (It certainly is a bad thing for the Bay Area.) Given the Peninsula city gov’t's resistance (and not all cities are resisting), the Authority reasonably decided to give the SJ-SF segment more time to resolve the issues and to start construction in the CV.
At this point, the NIMBY’s know they have to kill HSR out-right, which is what they are trying to do. If HSR is built at all, it will end up going down the CalTrain ROW. Even if the SJ is the initial terminus in the Bay Area, once people see HSR as a success, they will be clamoring for it to be extended to SF.
It’s an interesting question. Consider this scenario:
Later this year, there is a multi-year transportation authorization bill signed which contains a small HSR component limited to genuine HSR (Mica has talked up real HSR and condemned e.g. the midwestern 110 mph plans). On that basis FRA and CHSRA sign a long term agreement to build Bakersfield-SJ as HSR and electrify the existing Caltrain RoW so trains can run through to SF (4th and King!). We know that CHSRA has had staff do ridership/revenue projections for such a route; if those projections showed no need for operational subsidy, there’s a Phase 0.5 that can get built.
What happens once high speed trainsets start running between Bakersfield and SF? There develops a lot of pressure to build Bakersfield-LA. The bay area, after all, already gets service under this senario. So upgrading SJ-SF gets pushed into the back burner. What happens if the money runs out before SJ-SF can get upgraded?
Bret Reply:
January 19th, 2011 at 4:42 pm
I know that Bakersfield-Palmdale is expected to be wildly expensive, but anything that pushes the LA-Bakersfield connection is crucial. If this scenario does that, and helps to close the loop in the system, I think it’s an idea worth considering.
Nathanael Reply:
January 19th, 2011 at 9:34 pm
Well, *for a tunnel* Bakersfield-Palmdale actually isn’t supposed to be all that bad. Tunnels are just expensive in general.
What happens in the bay area ( and some other parts of the state) is fairly simple to understand.
People have large amount of their worth invested in what is very expensive ( even for modest homes) real estate.
They want to protect that investment and naturally feel threatened by any change.
Bay areans are very into “bay area living” ( just like our siblings with with a different father down south life a “lifestyle” in LA which we won’t go into)
The bay area is a particularly desirable natural setting. The combination of valleys, hills, the bay, the microclimates, the vistas, and so forth, combined with still present examples of postwar industrial blunders, and combined with a slightly environmentally hyper sensitive population, results in a very very very cautious approach to changing anything.
In san francisco people are very attached to the city and its history, lifestyle, the color of the sky, the views/vistas, the abundance of natural beauty/stunning setting as well as classic architecture. The fact that you have a large city that still has wild hilltops in the middle of it with native flora and fauna right at the end of your block, is what sets it apart, and To desecrate the city in anyway is akin to saying derogatory things about someones mother or children. ( rightfully so as the san francisco collective of villages (neighborhoods) is one of a kind, dallas, atlanta denver and houston are not one a kind there IS a difference)
This attitude prevails around the bay where villages, from mill valley to moraga, from kensington to cupertino, from belmont to burlingame and los altos to los gatos, each with their own identity and local boosters and protector, emulate their bigger sister with the orange bridge. Again rightfully so because what one must understand that it is this very village-y essence, this attitude and lifestyle, that creates and promotes the desirability of the bay area, resulting in high real estate values, attractiveness to the well educated, and attractiveness to talent and business. ITs all intertwined the same way that New York City, is attractive to certain people and business because of its business and culture climate and celebration of pure unadulterated greed without shame.
( imo nature does not a play a role in new york city, nature plays a leading role in the bay area) New yorkers do not care what the sky looks like or the fact that they can’t see it. If you propose blocking blue sky and sunlight to a san franciscan you get a punch in the nose, or a super dirty look, or a sit in on your lawn.
I digress. Yes, we know that high speed rail and transit in general, actually brings added value and yes, we actually do want those things here. BUT, where you put them and whos sky, lawn, park, vista, essence, identity, peace of mind, fen shui, you disturb is of utmost concern.
“The train is coming to run over your children and maim your cat and change your aura from lavender to taupe! circle the wagons!”
I understand it cuz I feel it myself. Im horrified at what this project means to my neighborhood. It takes every ounce of strength to support this project knowing what its going to do. But I support it even though its like a knife through my heart. And every bulldozer and every construction crane, and every rendering of every transbay development tower, is a knife through my heart.
But not everyone is going to be willing to be so cooperative. And that’s why. YOu may think its silly or irrational but you may not be a person whe was indoctrinated in northern california. Or who is enamored by its lifestyle. You may be one of those people who doesn’t stop in their tracks because you have to look at the particular color of blue in the sky at that moment contrasting with green/gold hill in the background. I’ve been staring at the bay area for 46 years and it never gets old.
Anyway, thats what its about. EVen if people can’t quite put their finger on it. Try to understand.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
January 19th, 2011 at 8:45 pm
Im horrified at what this project means to my neighborhood. It takes every ounce of strength to support this project knowing what its going to do.
I didn’t know you were so attached to parking lots. Because that’s what most of the changes will be. getting rid of the parking lots.
jimsf Reply:
January 19th, 2011 at 9:09 pm
its not he getting rid of parking lots that bothers me. It what is going to wind up in their place.
Al Reply:
January 20th, 2011 at 4:57 am
So it’s the skyscrapers blocking views that disturb you?
jimsf Reply:
January 20th, 2011 at 5:16 am
Its not the way they block out the sun and sky from the street below. and the way they gradually change the look of the place from a distance, from one where the landscape dominates, and the city sits nestled into that landscape, to one where the city overpowers and blots out the very natural setting which fostered it.
In most parts of the city near downtown, one can still look up and out and see a lot of big sky above ( without having to look straight up) and looking in most directions you still get patches of green, wild hilltops, visible at the edges of urban neighborhoods. That is a gift that most urban dwellers don’t get. With each highrise we are robbed of this bright fresh open feeling and we get a little more cut off and closed in. Its not about liking one or the other or “move to the country if you want that” its about the fact that we are blessed to have both in a someone unique situation, and are wary of destroying it on a whim.
Andre Peretti Reply:
January 20th, 2011 at 7:10 am
The impact of HSR on the landscape is not what most people think.
Opponents to HS1 had toured towns in Kent with video equipment, showing people TGV clips with overamplified sound tracks, and hillsides scarred by newly-opened lines. After watching that, everybody was sure they would have the equivalent of jets landing in their back gardens.
To counter this propaganda, Union Railways arranged visits to French LGV sites for large numbers of people, to show them what finished high speed railways were like in operation. They could see that LGVs practically disappear into the landscape after a few years. They also realised that actual train noise was far less audible than expected.
Since offering Californian NIMBYs all-expense-paid LGV visits is unthinkable they will be left with their visions of ugly berms and trains thundering past their backyards.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
January 20th, 2011 at 5:53 pm
While I admit a trip to France sounds great, we in America wouldn’t have to go that far; all we would have to do is visit the NEC and check out Acelas, Regionals and the rest in New England and Pennsylvania.
Still, if you could book me to France (expense paid, of course), I’ll go along. Throw in some time for a steam trip and I’ll pay for that ride myself! And a visit to check out Andre’s narrow-gauge island railroad on Corsica would be neat, too, even if it lacks steam.
Matthew Reply:
January 20th, 2011 at 7:17 am
Jim, you actually sound very, very much like the Southern Californians who oppose the Manhattanization of their unique Los Angeles paradise. I’m not taking sides, but just pointing out that there might not be such a big difference between Los Angeles and San Francisco as you might think. At least there needn’t be. A lot of the complaints that “Bay Areans” might have about Los Angeles might have their roots in the greater economic diversity present in the latter city and not about landscape, vistas, value placed on nature, or the scale of buildings.
bixnix Reply:
January 20th, 2011 at 7:39 am
true, except that central LA is already so dense that residents are in favor of Manhattanization (that’s a big reason that 30/10 passed) … everyone who felt otherwise moved to OC or Colorado a long time ago.
Matthew Reply:
January 20th, 2011 at 9:24 am
Well, central LA is certainly close to being Brooklynized. There are a lot of people who want to see further consolidation and development of shared infrastructure, and the county has come out in force to support public transportation through measure R. It took longer for LA’s physical boundaries to become relevant than it did for San Francisco, but there aren’t many more viable greenfield development sites in the metro area, and the new focus will be on infill. Anyway, I really don’t believe the overgeneralizations about LA vs San Francisco, or at least I don’t ascribe them to any meaningful kind of choice or values shared by the citizens of those cities.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
January 20th, 2011 at 6:06 pm
I’m sure people whined endlessly when the Ferry Building blocked the view down Market Street to the Bay… and I’m sure the Indians weren’t all that pleased with the Spainards and their missions….
Regardless of where in the bay area we live, this and this and this is what it looks like to us and people are just very protective.
Spokker Reply:
January 19th, 2011 at 8:24 pm
Other regions have sunsets and hills.
jimsf Reply:
January 19th, 2011 at 8:31 pm
yes and you find the same thing if you try to run hsr though laguna beach, malibu, santa barbara, lake arrowhead, topanga canyon, or yosemite.
Spokker Reply:
January 19th, 2011 at 8:39 pm
Only rich areas have sunsets.
jimsf Reply:
January 19th, 2011 at 9:19 pm
lol its true! no but seriously, I don’t really like those rich folks that much, but the thing is, even though I’ll never live in atherton and they will never invite me to their country club, they do a play a role in helping preserve a certain quality and preserve land, and keep things in a state of preservation. We are lucky in the bay area that when it was all happening, what happened to LA 1940s-1070s happened here to much less an extent. We were preserving long before la realized it was too late and it gave us quality of life. We don’t want to lose that. I oppose their opposition to high speed rail even though I totally feel for them and where they are coming from. I know in my support of hsr and tjpa, in my backyard, I have sold my soul to the devil because I want to be able to walk down the street and get fast train across the state for my own selfish reasons. I should be banished for treason!
YesonHSR Reply:
January 19th, 2011 at 9:58 pm
BTW… have you ever noticed the average age of the people showing up to complain about high speed rail in these communities.. they have got to be at least 65 to 72 years old and this may be one of the reasons you hear all the whining and complaining about doing something new.. they don’t want any change especially at this time in their lives they want everything to remain in a static environment for their remaining years but society must move forward. This is part of the American problem right now why everything is so hard to get anything done because all of the aging boomers.. I’m certainly not a spring chicken though nowhere near that age and for the next 30 years I wishto live in a nation that is forward thinking.. building new communities that are urban walkable with transit and with its major cities connected by true high-speed rail.. hopefully we’ll get that in California in the next nine years.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
January 19th, 2011 at 10:43 pm
Who, outside of Wendell Cox and some similar others, does not believe or has not seen the generational pattern we have spoken of so much on this site?
adirondacker12800 Reply:
January 20th, 2011 at 6:01 pm
…just keep in mind someone that is 66 is not a baby boomer. the oldest baby boomers just turned 65 in the past few weeks. For that matter very few baby boomers voted for Reagan, they were too young to vote.
Alon Levy Reply:
January 20th, 2011 at 10:54 pm
Um, what? The Baby Boomer generation is generally understood to be the 1946-1964 cohort, more or less. People born in or before 1962 could (and did) vote for Reagan.
bixnix Reply:
January 19th, 2011 at 10:27 pm
These days, many bay area folks have one idea of “good living” or “a good quality of life”… a nice quiet neighborhood with houses on large lots, nicely landscaped, with views of the ocean or bay. Everyone speaks english well, drives a nice car, and dresses like they shop at Macy’s or better. It’s similar to a slightly quieter Orange County. But that is only one way to measure quality of life… some folks enjoy living in a busy neighborhood where being close to the street and the subway is more important than a large lawn that just adds to your water bill, where the atmosphere may be more bohemian, no more than ten miles from clubs that rock into the morning, where you don’t know what kind of person you’ll bump into when you walk on the street, from rich to poor, and you won’t even be able to hazard a guess as to what their first language is. Their car will be whatever the heck they want, from a beater one step up from a scrapheap or a tricked out cruiser, dragster, rice rocket, or low rider, if they have a car at all. Or, at least, they don’t mind living in that kind of place with those kind of people. Is it better living to be in the suburbs of the bay area or living in the city areas of SF or LA? It depends on what’s important to the individual. Sure, Atherton’s nice … but I, for one, sure don’t want to live there. There’s a nice place for me that is nothing like that. Oh yeah, part of that quality of life is having HSR there.
James Reply:
January 20th, 2011 at 6:47 am
Part of my commute runs through Los Altos, from El Camino Real to I-280.
Part of this “nice quiet neighborhood” is half-mile strings of cars on two lane roads waiting
through multiple light cycles…
thatbruce Reply:
January 20th, 2011 at 1:19 pm
An interesting daily statistic to publish on the radio would be how many lane miles of backed up traffic is currently within a given area.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
January 19th, 2011 at 10:39 pm
I don’t have it in front of me, but when I get the chance I may post a part of an article by David P. Morgan (who was a long-time editor at Trains magazine). It’s from the 1950s, from a series of articles in which Morgan and Philip R. Hastings travelled around the country documenting the last steam operations they had the money and time to get to.
The particular piece in question is from an essay on the Winifred Railroad, a 7-mile long coal-hauler in West Virginia. Recalling what I can of the article, or specifically this segment of it, Morgan took a bit of a sidetrack in his comments, taking to task some people of the time who thought railroads a blight upon the land. To Morgan then, and for me (and Alfred Runte) now, a railroad blends in better with the land than a highway, particularly if it has been around a while. Morgan suggested that a railroad was, or could be, one with other of men’s workings that could harmonize with nature, such as the fence line, the barn, and the plowed field. He also thought a railroad was history itself (Harpers Ferry without the B&O was as unimaginable to him as the town without John Brown), and that it united the land (West Virginia’s spectacular New River Gorge, or your Feather River Canyon, become useless as corridors of commerce, and their beauty as unavailable to modern man as they were in the time of the Indians).
Alfred Runte has also argued a similar viewpoint in his book, “Allies of the Earth,” essentially saying that railroads with passenger services were needed to “preserve America the beautiful.” As I would interpret this, imagine replacing the Union Pacific line (formerly Western Pacific) down the Feather River with an Interstate type highway, and think how the landscape will change.
Another way of seeing this is to go to Google Maps or something similar, and pick a location with railroads, roads, and divided highways in the same general proximity (some good examples near where I live would include Point of Rocks, Md., and Martinsburg and Harpers Ferry, W.Va.), and take a look at how roads, particularly large Interstates, are highly visible in the satellite photos, where railroads, even multi-tracked ones, can seem to be almost invisible unless you know where to look or something to looke for (in the east, this can be a sinuous line of trees, filling out the sides of the right-of-way).
How can I not have a post without at least one link?
Some background on the Winifred Railroad:
http://www.gottrains.com/winifrede/index.htm
Nathanael Reply:
January 20th, 2011 at 10:28 am
Yeah, I have to zoom in close on Google Maps to spot most railroad lines. I can spot railyards at distant zooms, but not rail lines. Even the elevated ones.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
January 19th, 2011 at 8:50 pm
so they have NIMBYs other places. in other new Francisco Franco is still dead.
YesonHSR Reply:
January 19th, 2011 at 9:37 pm
But we are not running high-speed rail through Malibu or Laguna Beach or along the beautiful ocean.. it’s basically here in the Bay Area along a post semi-industrial railroad that most homes along it are a very basic blue-collar type when they were built.. you know as you have him stated before it sure ain’t San Francisco down there along that route.. even Atherton and Menlo Park are nowhere near as nice as Beverly Hills or Bel Air or for that matter any of the beautiful towns in New England with trains running thru at high speeds. As stated many times these people move next to this 120-year-old railroad and many want upgraded with high-speed rail BUTof course the ones nearest want a goldplated tunnel or park to replace that railroad they moved right next to.
jimsf Reply:
January 20th, 2011 at 5:09 am
I understand and know that is all true. I was just explaining the thinking/attitude behind the resistance. I’m not saying its right or rational. I don’t want any new towers in the tbt neighborhood. But of course they will come. Cities grow and change. But its not that one person is right and the other is wrong. People have different ideas about what’s desirable and everyone is not only entitled to their opinion, but entitled to the available processes to make things go their way. So it deos slow things down.
I live in the eclectic urban neighborhood the bixnix describes above. But not for the reasons he describes. I hate this neighborhood, but there are reasons of economics, and convenience that outweigh my likes and dislilkes. So I have to stay but I don’t want things to get worse. And finally, there is something very nice about this region that gives you so much in the way of urban, suburban, parkland, country, and wilderness, mixed together in one place. Usually one has to choose one or two. We have it all here in this magical blend and its that balance that nobody wants to see thrown out of wack because its at the heart of what this place is. So yes to progress, but carefully, whatever you do make it look nice.
YesonHSR Reply:
January 20th, 2011 at 7:54 am
Good design yes… outrageously expensive tunnels NO.. and yes they have very good examples to look at right in the neighborhood.. at the San Carlos station. But of course that’s not acceptable they want a park behind their house or don’t build the project…. that’s pure NIMBY and obstructionist thinking.. look at Belmont where the tracks already have been rasied and not that long ago..they want a tunnel!! This is the obstructionist and unreasonable NIMBY attitudes that needs exposed
jimsf Reply:
January 21st, 2011 at 4:24 pm
tunnels no. I think aerials done correctly can actually add something to the downtowns.
Does anyone on this forum for HSR actually live in the Bay Area?? We have the highest realestate values in the country for one reason alone, because there’s nowhere else to build! It’s very densely populated. Buying all the businesses AND homes along the CalTrain corridor just does not seem feasible. The problem for businesses is that there is nowhere else to reasonably go, not with our zoning laws. Forget about the fact that it will destroy our downtowns that make the BA so unique, it will be waaaay over budget. I think HSR from LA to SF is potentially a good idea if done properly (I think that’s an oxymoron) just not through the Bay Area. I’m 30 years old.
Alon Levy Reply:
January 20th, 2011 at 11:00 pm
Most of the Californians here are from the Bay Area, including for example Clem Tillier, who sometimes comments here.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
January 20th, 2011 at 11:44 pm
Brendon, you sound worried, but you don’t have to be; in fact, I’d be more worried if the thing weren’t built.
Why?
Because this country uses something like 54% of its total oil consumption for motor fuel. Our road system is our weak point, our security threat. This over-reliance on automobiles feeds large corporations that do not care about us, and part of it feeds enemies who seek to destroy us. It makes us vulnerable to oil shocks, either through severe price hikes that can cripple the economy (and the most recent price run-up was at least the trigger to what blew us up recently; it could also be the puff of wind that blew down our financial house of cards), or we could even have oil supply disruption, which happened in Kentucky and Tennessee following a refinery shut-down during the Katrina incident.
In addition to that, this country pays an enormous price in money and blood with our current transportation system, including a lot of money for road maintenance and construction your gas taxes don’t pay for, casualties in auto accidents (consistently between 30,000 and 40,000 per year), money and resources for what amount to oil wars, and casualties there, too, and finally just the hassle of what driving is now.
We need to deemphasise cars and driving. This doesn’t mean they completely go away, but we do need to get to a better balance. It’s been kind of like chocolate, in that you can have too much of a good thing. You might say we need a more balanced diet in the transportation market. This means we need to bring back local transit (trolleys or light rail are examples), regional rail (commuter trains and corridor trains, such as your San Diegan service), high-speed rail (which is something the old-timers didn’t have), and even overnight or sleeper trains. And yes, that also means we need bicycles and electric cars, too.
Now, you have also expressed concern that this new railroad will ruin your area. I have to admit, I am not from California; I live in the east. Your place is not my backyard. However, I’ve been around trains and railroads about all my life, my current residence is only a block away from a railroad line, and I even once helped in an extremely minor way with a steam locomotive overhaul. They are very much a part of my backyard, and I can tell you, they are not what the detractors make them out to be. I’ve watched electric trains whizz past at over 100 mph, and I can personally tell you it was amazing how quiet they were, much quieter than coal trains or general freight trains.
Rail service is also usually much safer than driving, and is on a par with flight, and even then has survivability advantages when there is an accident. That’s no small consideration with the nuts who are on the highways today.
I can also personally tell you that a lot of the detractors you are hearing from are either willfully ignorant, biased because of age (look up some past posts here for what I am speaking of), fearful of the unknown, or even deceitful (i.e., oil and auto interests who feel threatened by this project). I’ve experienced some of this first hand; I once attempted to promote a rapid transit line here in the east, and among other things, was accused of being a Communist. Shades of 1952!
My advice, if you can swing it, would be to take a trip, to Europe, Japan, or even just to our own east coast, and find a place to take a rental car to, and watch electric high speed trains. Take note of how things look, and how they sound. Get a real, first-hand look. You’ll have a better idea of what is being proposed–and I think you may feel better for it, too.
Take care;
D. P. Lubic
Joey Reply:
January 20th, 2011 at 11:58 pm
Plenty here are from the Bay Area. I’m among them. Here are a few misconceptions you seem to have:
Firstly, a lot less property takes than you think will be required. As it turns out, something like 90% of the CalTrain Corridor is already wide enough for 4 tracks, so most of the existing homes and businesses along the corridor will remain intact. Heck, if done right, you could even put more businesses under an elevated structure (this works fine – there’s precedent in cities around the world). As for destroying downtowns, I’m not sure exactly what you mean. As I mentioned, most of what’s already there will stay there. An elevated structure would create a visual barrier, but it would actually improve access from one side of the tracks to the other.
As for being done properly, that’s only impossible under the current management ;-) Foreign HSR projects manage to be done extremely well with minimal impacts, cost overruns, or delays. It’s quite possible that the optimism I showed above will not turn out to be so true with the way this project is being run. But don’t think it’s impossible to do it right, and know that HSR has been built successfully through denser areas than the BA.
synonymouse Reply:
January 21st, 2011 at 12:53 am
These towns cannot afford the blight which accompanies aerial structures. They know now they never should have supported Prop 1A. Hopefully they will have also learned to get even by voting against every spending measure that comes up.
Vote no in June.
Joey Reply:
January 21st, 2011 at 7:18 am
Care to be more specific? And maybe with some actual logic and statistics, rather than conspiracy theories about turning rich suburbs into slums?
adirondacker12800 Reply:
January 21st, 2011 at 4:09 pm
The horrors it going to turn Palo Alto into Princeton and Burlingame into Scarsdale….
jay taylor Reply:
January 21st, 2011 at 9:37 am
>These towns cannot afford the blight which accompanies aerial structures.
Tell that to Albany and El Cerrito with there elevated BART lines. Both cities are doing just fine with them.
J. Wong Reply:
January 21st, 2011 at 5:19 pm
I’m voting yes in June. So is Joey (it’ll be his first election).
Spokker Reply:
January 21st, 2011 at 5:50 pm
Voting yes regardless of content or merit.
Jeff Carter Reply:
January 21st, 2011 at 4:34 am
I live on the peninsula in Burlingame; I could probably throw a ball from my complex and hit the train.
Based on your argument, Belmont and San Carlos should have been ‘destroyed’ years ago when the grade separation berm was put up for Caltrain. Businesses have not closed and the downtowns, as well as the 42nd Ave area in San Mateo, are doing just fine, aside from the poor economy, which has nothing to do with the grade separation.
The anti-HSR fear mongering you hear; that HSR will ‘destroy’ downtowns and take ‘thousands” of home and businesses… is nothing but outright lies…..
Sure there may be some properties that will have to be taken but those will be few and far between.
YesonHSR Reply:
January 21st, 2011 at 8:46 am
pure fearmongering is correct..I live by 101 in San Francsico..and its not a dead zone around.
J. Wong Reply:
January 21st, 2011 at 5:18 pm
The only place that is really dense is SF, which is why they are proposing a tunnel there so they won’t have to take much property for the ROW. But my suspicion is that they will end up sharing the CalTrain ROW through SF. There’s one station (22nd St) and no reason not to.
I live in SF and take CalTrain to Hillsdale. This is what I see where there might be “takings”: There’s a lumber yard next to the Millbrae Station. They’ll have to lose part of their yard. There’s a bunch of autodealers in Burlingame that will have to lose some of their lots, or not. If an aerial is built, even a half-height one with roads below grade where they cross the ROW, then they will be able to regain and use the space beneath to park their inventory again. There’s a car wash right next to the ROW at Broadway. Again, with an aerial they will be able to relocate underneath. Some properties in San Mateo will lose small parts of their yards. Again, with an aerial on top of the existing berm, they won’t even lose any of the frontage road or access. The donut shop in Burlingame is probably a goner though :-( too bad.