High Speed Rail work begins in Burlingame

Soil testing in front of the historic Burlingame Train Station began on Friday. Here's what we know so far:

·         The drilling company is Pitcher (http://www.pitcherdrilling.com/index.htm )

·         They are going down 100’  (Tunnel depth?  Certainly trench depth.)

·         The soil is almost exclusively alluvium – loose sediment of clay, sand, silt, etc.; basic Bay fill.

·         Bedrock is about 300-400’ down

·         They were at approximately 70’ as of noon today.

·         The water table was about 10’ down

·         Asked if alluvium was very stable in an earthquake and was told by the lead guy (the guy with the clip board) that he doesn’t care to comment on that.

Comments

[David McCulloch]

Russ and Joe - Thanks for the regular updates on the high speed rail link. Can you recommend a good source for getting thoroughly up-to-speed on proposed route / potential disruption to Burlingame? The 'official' sites seem pretty lacking in clear, simply information. Also, would love to understand what steps remain before building starts...many? few? months? years? Thanks, David.

[Clifford]

There are two great sites you can visit to get up-to-speed on the train (no pun intended)-
www.dontrailroadus.com and www.calhsr.com. With the $2.25B Stimulus Grant to HSR, construction is required to start by 2012. But CHSRA wants to put a stake in the ground as soon as possible and by doing so force funding for the $30B+ they are currently lacking. Some important dates are coming up - release of the Environmental Impact Report in the next few days and release of the Alternative Alignment Analysis on April 1st. This is when they will officially tell us that they plan to destroy our Peninsula cities with the cheapest above-ground structure possible. Both of these reports come with a 45-day comment period from the public and I would suggest that whether for or against, we need to use our voices. This may be one of the last "official" chances to influence the project. However, I am an optimist (though it may not be apparent) and I believe that we can impact the outcome of this financial and environmental disaster.

[Russ]

Clifford suggests two good websites for info.
Another two would be:
www.cc-hsr.org
www.peninsularail.com

The folks behind the former site is best described in their own words here:
The Community Coalition on High Speed Rail (CC-HSR) is a grassroots organization representing hundreds of residents in Mountain View, Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Atherton and Burlingame. CC-HSR is managed by neighborhood leaders and was formed in response to widespread concern about how High Speed Rail (HSR) might affect our local communities and businesses. As currently planned, HSR will devastate residential and business areas on the San Francisco Peninsula. CC-HSR insists that the State of California “do it right” with HSR.

The latter is the site for the Peninsula Cities Consortium, a group of current city council members from Palo Alto, Burlingame, Belmont, and Menlo Park.

[Jim]

What happened to the public sign at Bob's gas station? That's where I first heard about high speed rail ruining the peninsula cities (note: SF HSR will be underground).

[Karen Jensen]

There's a great blog on Caltrain/HSR that jsut posted an analysis of HSR in Burlingame.
http://caltrain-hsr.blogspot.com/

[jennifer]

Dear Jim,

The items posted on the Community Board were vandalized with increasing frequency and the board ultimately cut loose and tossed into the bushes-- apparently a person or persons didn't like what was posted or maybe there are just some bored kids around with nothing else to do. Good thing Bob's nice car collection wasn't collateral damage. He has done a great service to our neighborhood, allowing the board to be posted on his property all this time.

[jennifer]

Check this out.....
Transportation Budget 2010-2011
Legislative Analysis Office
March 2, 2010

http://www.lao.ca.gov/analysis/2010/transportation/trans_anl10.pdf