High Cost Rail - Part 7 (EIR and Alternative Routes)

Next week there are three opportunities to get informed and involved in the High Cost Rail threat to the Peninsula.  On Wed., April 7th there are two public outreach sessions:

10:00 am to noon – Sheriff’s Auditorium, 55 West Younger Avenue, San Jose, CA

5:00 pm to 7:00 pm – Board of Supervisors Chambers, 70 West Hedding Street, San Jose CA

that you can read a bit about at http://www.hsr-prep.blogspot.com/

Then the following day, Thursday April 8, the CA High Speed Rail Authority's monthly meeting is happening at the same 70 W. Hedding St. location.  This particular monthly meeting starts at 9 am and is loaded with committee reports (operations, finance, search, audit) as well as discussion of the Transbay Terminal in S.F. and an addendum to the Business Plan--which needs plenty of addending.

Item 11 is

Alternatives Analysis Report - San Francisco-San Jose

Staff will describe the alignment alternatives in the San Francisco - San Jose section, timed with the release of the Alternatives Analysis report for the section.

The Alternatives Analysis report will be posted at www.cahighspeedrail.ca.gov by the morning of April 8.

That part should be most interesting, but it is hard to predict what time it will occur especially since the agenda says "items may be taken out of order".  Nice of them to put Public Comment first--we wouldn't want the pesky public to comment on what they have just heard.

Comments

[Jim]

According to this article http://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/show_story.php?id=16323

Caltrain is losing money and one of the factors is reduced ridership. How doees this jibe with HSR assertion that ridership will increase? Also, with 9 billion $ sitting there, why not forget about HSR and completely revamp inter-city commuting? Just a thought.

[pat giorni]

http://thedailynews.ca.newsmemory.com/ee/thedailynews/index.php#

Diridon leads bad transit plan parade

Dear Editor: Daily, we hear more and more about transportation. Caltrain is going bankrupt, the VTAis running empty, city bus rides are getting more expensive, Muni is out of money.

California planners are (dare I say this?) stupid. Since 1965, when they had the chance to work smart, they chose to work in the most glaringly deficient way possible. The reasons: a) BART could have circled the Bay, providing workable transportation for millions of residents when it was first constructed. But Santa Clara and San Mateo counties stated emphatically that the future of California was the automobile and BART wasn’t welcome. Only today, 45 years later, is BART honestly being considered for inclusion into San Jose.

b) Caltrain is absolutely underfunded, losing more than $30 million a year. All the other transit agencies receive substantial portions of their revenue from sales tax. Caltrain gets nothing, not a stinking dime from sales taxes. Yet 56,000 people a day ride Caltrain between San Jose and San Francisco. Add in the Gilroy riders and the number gets even bigger. Caltrain is within an inch of shutting down. Wouldn’t it be fun to put all those people in cars on the freeways?

c) Rod Diridon pushed for the stupendously costly and inefficient VTA light rail system in San Jose. The windows in the VTAcars were blacked out two years ago so folks wouldn’t see how many people ride the rail. How many? Practically no one at all. Hey Rod, nice job. But light rail gets 45 percent of its budget from sales tax revenue so it’s fiscally OK for now.

d) Diridon also pushed for huge, double-length buses which are almost never full. There are now some new, small buses operating along some routes, similar to the Marguerite shuttle at Stanford, which is a good idea. No matter though, the fare keeps going up on the bus.

e) A5- to 10-cent gas tax increase would make a huge difference in state transportation revenues. But every single senator and legislator is scared to even bring it up. The brief time our gas prices hit $5 a gallon the number of cars on the roadways plummeted. Our carbon footprint shrunk. That was a very good thing. What would happen if the difference between today’s gas costs and $5 a gallon was actually a tax? Would that help?

f) Diridon also wants to put in a high-speed rail system between San Francisco and Los Angeles. He estimates it will cost no more then $42 billion. Most economists think it will cost at least three times that. Ridership, Diridon claims, will be stupendous, but most folks think it’ll be minimal, with some trains running at less then 10 percent capacity.

I’m 200 percent behind good, smart public transportation.

It needs to be extremely cheap to encourage people to use it.

Car and bicycle parking at public transportation sites needs to be substantial, and free, to encourage its use. Parking lots and stations need to be kept clean and well lighted.

Public transportation should be heavily financed by gasoline taxes. I support a $2-per-gallon state tax, preferably used entirely for infrastructure rebuilding and repairs and for good, smart public transportation.

I’ve got a job for Diridon— at Starbucks.

James Thurber, Mountain View

[Mr. Slate]

I wouldn't drink that latte. It would be all foam and cost about $12.50 or more depending on future numbers.

I say we use the HSR money and dig BART underground all the way to San Jose (or Gilroy) at a fraction of the cost. Then we build a huge park where the tracks are now. Not only keep the Euc's, we plant more!!