Speaking after Thursday’s CHSRA board meeting, Rod Diridon suggested that the question over which segment gets the funds means the Bay Area segment has to “catch up” to the rest of the state, as reported by Mike Rosenberg:

California High-Speed Rail Authority board member Rod Diridon said after a San Diego board meeting that of the four corridors eligible for the federal cash, the Los Angeles-to-Anaheim section was clearly leading. He said the corridor is about 18 months ahead of the San Francisco-to-San Jose section in terms of planning.

“We’re going to have to catch up (in the Bay Area),” said Diridon, one of two Bay Area representative on the board, which is in charge of divvying up stimulus funds. “That doesn’t mean shortcut — shortcuts are deadly.”…

At the very least, he said they would “put a lot of pressure” on the Bay Area engineering team to maintain its schedule. In the Bay Area last year, the state extended a public outreach process by 30 days and its critical report on track alignment, originally scheduled for completion in December, now will be out in March.

The larger staff would not necessarily accelerate the process past checkpoints, only ensure planners don’t fall behind schedule while holding all the public hearings they promised, Diridon said.

Diridon’s caution against “shortcuts” is important here, and the timeline proposed is fair, though work will have to be done to ensure that Context Sensitive Solutions doesn’t get tossed aside in the process. The need for economic stimulus and jobs in the Bay Area is still desperate, and there is every reason to believe we can balance that with the need to run a fair and thorough public input process.

Of course, the mere mention of “catching up” is causing concern on the Peninsula that it might indeed mean cutting corners on public engagement:

But many officials and residents in the Peninsula and South Bay have pushed for the opposite, hoping to slow down the process to make sure each detail is tirelessly examined. They already fear the White House stimulus grant awarded last week will spark the authority into a mad dash that could result in oversights and critical errors. The state needs to enter a construction contract by September 2012 or lose the federal money.

Some of these voices were heard at the Palo Alto State Senate hearing last month, calling for a delay of the stimulus so that more time could be taken to assess the project and possible ways to build it, including Palo Alto mayor Pat Burt.

Such a delay is unnecessary. The engineering team working on the Peninsula is going to publish its Alternatives Analysis next month, and preliminary outreach to stakeholders about that analysis are already under way. That analysis will help clarify many questions and uncertainties about the project, and provide for a more focused discussion. That discussion may not be any less contentious, but it will be more productive in that there will be something more concrete (literally and figuratively) to look at, to examine, and to help provide feedback to the Caltrain/HSR project.

One of the most common and notorious ways to kill a project or an idea one dislikes is to study it to death. That can’t happen with high speed rail. At the same time, the people of California, no matter where they happen to live, deserve the ability to provide input and have their voices heard about the project proposal. Additionally, there is the commitment to a CSS process that must be respected.

There is every reason to believe those commitments, those obligations to receive public input, and the need to produce solid plans can be done in time to meet federal stimulus deadlines on the Peninsula – if the present timeline and schedule is kept.

A spirit of honest collaboration may be slowly starting to emerge on the Peninsula. High speed rail is going to happen. Let’s hope all the parties on the Peninsula, including the great silent majority of HSR supporters, are able to work together to ensure this gets built in a way that fits the community’s needs.

On November 18, the non-profit group Sustainable Menlo Park hosted a presentation on the latest developments on high speed rail. Sustainable Menlo Park is officially “neutral” on the subject of High Speed Rail, but decided to host the event due to local interest in the subject. On the podium were Bruce Fukuji of Caltrain, John Litzinger of HNTB, and Greg Gleichman of AECOM. Turnout at the event was low; there was not a lot of publicity beforehand, and there were perhaps 30 people in attendance. Much of the information had been presented in prior events, but here are a few notes:

Bruce Fukuji made a presentation on Context Sensitive Solutions for the Peninsula. He began, however, by reminding everyone in the room of the big picture: the looming challenge of sustainability. California has led the nation on climate change targets, but meeting future emissions targets is going to be a challenge. He noted that 42% of carbon emissions in California are transportation-related. Even with improvements in fuel efficiency, an expanding population will result in an increase in vehicle miles traveled. Population growth will more than cancel out improvements in combustion-engine technology. It will be impossible to reach our emissions targets simply by relying on hybrids and increases in fuel efficiency. He used the following graph to illustrate the relationship between urban density and gasoline consumption:

Fukuji then went on to discuss the development of Context Sensitive Solutions as a reaction to the DAD model of planning (Design, Announce, Defend). He also explained the concept of “value engineering” and how there is a need to give the functional needs and the context needs equal weight.

The next speaker was John Litzinger from HNTB. He gave a detailed overview of the EIR process, and noted that the goal is to have a fully approved and final EIR at the end of 2011.
During the Q&A session, Litzinger commented that the engineering studies around crossing San Francisquito Creek may likely determine that a bored tunnel is the preferred alignment for engineering reasons; crossing the creek and the approach to El Palo Alto at grade or in a shallow trench is problematic. This may explain why CHSRA representatives at recent meetings have seemed open to tunneling through much of Menlo Park and Palo Alto; if CHSRA engineers conclude that the best way to cross San Francisquito is in a deep tunnel, it may be that Menlo Park and Palo Alto may get some of their tunnel without having to fight for it. I should clarify that this was not in any way an official announcement, just the musings of an engineer. The vast majority of questions from the audience related to tunnels. In some cases, audience members didn’t really have questions, they just wanted to state their preference for a tunnel. None of them had any suggestions for how to pay for it.

The last question of the night had to do with subsidies. The questioner stated his premise that all High Speed Rail systems around the world are dependent on subsidies. Litzinger responded by distinguishing the costs of the building the initial infrastructure from the costs of maintenance and expansion. High Speed Rail, like every other form of transportation infrastructure, depends upon government subsidy for construction. After an adoption period to build ridership, all High Speed Rail systems cover their maintenance and expansion costs. Litzinger then noted that High Speed Rail is the opposite of freeways; both need subsidies for construction, but afterwards, High Speed Rail covers its own maintenance and expansion costs, whereas freeways don’t charge anything to users and rely entirely on taxpayers forever.