The Burlingame Voice

Caltrain: Dirty little secret revealed

The Daily Post enlightened us yesterday with a frontpage piece on the railroad bridge between Menlo Park and Palo Alto that needs to be replaced ASAP.  The steel bridge is 120 years old and could crack at any time, said Rob Barnard, Caltrain's deputy chief of rail development.  The ugly part of the story is the schedule and impact on operations.  Here are some snippets from the piece:

Caltrain will get to work on designing the bridge at the end of 2024.  Caltrain will come up with a preferred method for replacing the bridge over San Francisquito Creek by 2025, Barnard said.  Steel from the bridge was sent to a lab to be analyzed for strength and composition.  The study found that the bridge is not in imminent danger of collapse, and there are no cracks.  The bridge must be replaced by 2033, and the project will take nine years in total, Barnard said.

Trains won't be able to cross the bridge during two years of construction, Barnard said.  Caltrain may have to run fleets of busses between the Palo Alto station and the Menlo Park station so people can still ride the train, he said.  The "bus bridge" would have to move hundreds of people during the peak hours, so the logistics would be very complicated, Barnard said.

Wanna bet?  This project and two years of off-the-train-on-the-bus-off-the-bus-on-the-train will kill commuter ridership.  It will be a complete mess and everyone will be back in their cars for any trip that crosses the creek.  All of the on-going electrification work and supposed faster service will not bolster ridership until 2033 as the absolute best-case scenario--and when does the best-case ever play out on these projects?  It turns out they are already holding Caltrains off the bridge when a Union Pacific freighter is coming so there aren't two trains on the bridge at the same time.  I see the finances bleeding red and another sales tax and/or bond measure on the horizon. 

High-Cost Rail - Part 158 Rubber-stamping the EIR

The Chronicle and the Daily Journal dutifully put the CHSRA Board's rubber-stamp of the EIR for the Central Valley to EssEff section of the "bullet train" on their front pages.  The Chron sub-headed "Despite win, major hurdles remain for project" and the DJ sub-headed Millbrae's pending legal action about a parcel of land near the station expansion.

Having your own Board "approve" your EIR is sort of like me approving the dinner reservation I just made.  The state legislature still hasn't had the courage to kill the beast as hoped back in May.  The Chron made some attempt to frame the challenges

Major hurdles to the project remain. For starters, California hasn’t figured out where it will get up to $25 billion needed to build the San Francisco and Silicon Valley bullet train extensions.   Democrats in the state Assembly, led by the powerful Los Angeles delegation, had pushed for years to take a chunk of the $4.2 billion in bond funds for the Central Valley line and instead spend it on regional transportation projects in major metro areas that could eventually connect with high-speed rail.

But that standoff ended in June, when the Rail Authority emerged with its bond funding intact, though its operations will be overseen by a new inspector general. Lawmakers also dropped a push to cut costs by using diesel-powered trains, rather than electrified track, in the Central Valley.  But the project has faced ridicule over repeated construction delays and soaring costs, with its total budget growing from $33 billion to at least $105 billion in the Rail Authority’s latest business plan — and potentially many billions more when the authority factors recent inflation into its estimates.

Trains were initially supposed to start running in 2020. Now, the agency doesn’t anticipate the first trains will start running in the Central Valley until 2029, followed by Silicon Valley in 2031.

Leave it to Quentin Kopp to summarize

Still, the project faces critics who say it’s drifted too far from the statewide system voters approved in 2008. Quentin Kopp, a retired state senator and former chairman of the Rail Authority Board, laughed at the idea of bullet trains running into downtown San Francisco.  “That’s called much ado about nothing,” he said. “This is destined for the graveyard of boondoggles now.”

I liked the Dilbert cartoon that ran in today's DJ--it's a fit with this non-news

  

Caltrain: Between a rock and a hard place

The Wall Street Journal is highlighting the sticky situation commuter railroads are in nationwide and zeroing in on Caltrain.  While Caltrain is walking around with its hand out looking for monies to finish the electrification project, it is also dealing with what looks like a permanent reduction in ridership.  The Journal reports

Caltrain, whose commuter trains link San Francisco with Silicon Valley, said in a January report that a sustained ridership decline “poses a severe financial challenge to the viability of the railroad’s business model.” Caltrain said fare revenue historically covered nearly 70% of operating costs.

The report cited a survey in which 37% of people said they expected to commute at least four days a week post-pandemic, down from 71% before, while 41% said they would likely commute a few days weekly or monthly, up from 9% pre-pandemic. Another 22% speculated they would rarely if ever commute, versus 15% before the pandemic.

Sebastian Petty, Caltrain’s deputy chief of planning, said the agency, like the MBTA, was pivoting to focus less on the commuter market. “Our future is to be more of a regional rail provider,” he said. “It’s a significant challenge to our business model.”

Wait.  It's a single line from SF to San Jose.  What "regional rail provider" model could there possibly be?  It already connects to BART and VTA and maybe someday after we are all dead, it will connect to high-cost rail.  But BART and VTA are experiencing the same declines--or more.  The Journal goes on to note

Transit officials in some cities have shifted schedules away from traditional rush-hour periods, or are doing more to attract suburbanites headed downtown for sporting events as a way to fill seats.

But riding up to 41 home Warrior games and 81 home Giants games isn't going to cut it.  It's time for some hard-nosed business decision making before San Mateo county residents are asked to pony up even more money.

High-Cost Rail - Part 156 Employer of the Year?

I probably should have saved this for an April Fool's Day post, but I fear nobody would have been fooled.  Just this week we learn:

SACRAMENTO, Calif. – The California High-Speed Rail Authority (Authority) has received the prestigious Employer of the Year Award from the Women in Transportation Seminar (WTS) Sacramento chapter. This annual award recognizes a transportation organization for outstanding leadership in mentoring women in the transportation field, providing opportunities for upward mobility for women and having women at the highest levels of leadership.

“A talented, highly-capable and diverse staff is a pre-requisite for success on a project of this magnitude,” said Authority CEO Brian Kelly.

Let's look at the state of the project.  A supermajority Democratic legislature is balking at the ever-escalating costs and suggesting the Authority pull the plug on the Central Valley train to nowhere in favor of spending the funds at the metropolitan bookends; while our US Senators are out begging in Washington for additional bookend funding.  Other legislators are asking if the trains shouldn't be diesel--the horrors!  Much of the overrun is driven by the inability to get rights of way deal closed and putting in change orders that send the contractors' bills up.  The system has dropped to a single-track configuration in the Central Valley which is gonna make north and southbound trains tough to schedule.  And the court battle over complying with the original Proposition's T's & C's is on-going.

CC-HSR is now heading to the California Supreme Court. We will be filing a “Petition For Review” in the Supreme Court on or before January 7^th, and while the Supreme Court doesn’t have to hear our case, we have some good reasons to think that the Court will take up the question we raise.   The Supreme Court has made very clear, in its own past decisions, that the Legislature cannot pull a “bait and switch” on the voters.

If the CHSRA were a private company, it would be bankrupt, out of operation and looking to sell assets in a court-monitored sale---but there aren't any assets beyond some concrete in the Central Valley.  If I were working for the Authority, that job would not be highlighted very much on my resume--regardless of my sex.

Planning for a Rollicking Rollins Rd.

I’m very excited by the impending housing growth in North Burlingame that will end up bringing “thousands of new homes” to the Rollins Rd. industrial section of town.  The amount of planning that went into this decision by state and county officials, the City Council, the Planning Commission and city staff is impressive.  Here are the details:

Water:   I know the decision makers have a grasp on our dire water situation because they said so back in May  calling it “alarming”.  They also know the SFPUC cannot be trusted to keep the Peninsula’s water interests front-of-mind regardless of whatever “contract” we have with them, so the negotiations with the state to gain access to Bayfront land for our new desalinization plant (instead of a park) are to be complemented.  Desalinized drinking water is about ten times as expensive as water agencies buy now due to the energy costs.  Then there is the cost of getting rid of the brine, but the free land access will help the economics.  The new water tank on Rollins will ensure reliable water for the new neighborhood.

Outflow:  In the spirit of “what goes in, must come out”, the city study on sewage treatment capacity at the Bayfront plant will probably find a need for additional capacity, but we can be sure that raising the sewer rates to pay for it will be easy as we just saw this year.  Burlingame is a welcoming community, so higher rates will be fine with the public.

Power:  The decision makers’ extensive negotiations with PG&E to get it to strengthen the Burlingame grid are to be complemented.  Not only will the grid improvements supply the new desalinization plant’s load, but it will also ensure grid stability for the rest of the city.  Generous state and federal funding for new solar panels on the new construction and some existing Rollins Rd. buildings will help; as will a brand new grid-based battery facility.  Whoever got that big grant should get a promotion.  The natural gas pipes should be fine since there won’t be any natural gas allowed.

Schools:  Given the thousands of new homes coming, it was prescient of the city council to snap up a large parcel on Rollins Rd. and sign a long-term, low-cost lease with the Burlingame School District.  This will enable BSD to build a new school serving North Burlingame Eastside students.  The parcel may be large enough to also build a BIS Annex to cut down on car traffic to BIS.  I expect that the next school bond measure to pay for it all will pass easily as Burlingame is a welcoming community.

Traffic:  As we consider the extensive traffic study conducted as part of the General Plan update, it is gratifying to see that the Broadway grade separation project is now fully funded and we are ready to start The Big B'game Dig in 2022.  As today's SF Comicle notes:

The intersection of Caltrain and Broadway in Burlingame has the ignominious distinction of being the street-level train crossing most in need of fixing in the state, based on a calculation that factors in number of accidents, disruptions to local traffic and other overall safety concerns.  The busy crossing serves demand from trains, vehicles, pedestrians and cyclists, a hectic mix that has resulted in 11 car-train collisions in the past five years, a number of near misses and some fatal accidents. It has also caused considerable traffic backups: The crossing gate is currently down about an hour per day, and the city estimates that will rise to nearly three hours per day by 2040.

The project should go fast as most of them do; and be completed in time to help ease the load on Millbrae Ave. and Rollins Rd. for the new North Burlingame residents.  Luckily, the city’s negotiations with Caltrain were also successful in getting the Broadway station to reopen.  That will make a big difference for local traffic through the B'way intersection over the next 10 years.

Of course, Rollins Rd. isn't the only part of town with strong growth so all of these impending improvements will benefit the whole town.  That's why Burlingame is a welcoming community.

I admit I was initially skeptical about a huge new residential section at the north end of town.  It seemed like many of the growing pains would be intractable problems, but with a lot of diligent work everything appears to be on track.  Many people are to be complemented.

Caltrain: Electrification Costs Spiral

I revisit the electrification story about once a year and the situation never seems to change--it is taking longer than expected, costing more than expected and the duration and total costs are still unknown; as is the money source.  Here are some snippets from the DJ article:

Following the Friday announcement of additional cost overruns for Caltrain’s electrification modernization project, its board has authorized spending increases to ensure its completion, despite concerns over where funding will materialize.  Caltrain’s electrification project faces $462 million in additional costs following its settlement agreement with contractor Balfour Beatty Infrastructure, higher than its initial June estimate of $333 million.  COVID-19 related delays, utility issues and real estate have also played a role in increasing costs, Caltrain staff said.

Board Member Steve Heminger supported the additional funding for the project. However, he cautioned the board to prepare for the worst when it comes to a funding strategy. Heminger noted only slightly more than half of the extra costs are known and covered through federal grants and Measure RR funds, with the rest still to be found.  It has received around $52.4 million from the federal government... Credit financing will cover another $150 million, with Measure RR capital reserve funding accounting for $60 million.

That last bit, using Measure RR funds, is controversial because the alternative is "relying on member agency funding".  "$100 million here, $100 million there, pretty soon you are talking about real money" to paraphrase C. Everett Dirksen.  You can guess what that means.  At least the catenary wires have arrived in B'game as seen here near B'way.  And the bulk of the work on this is above ground.  Keep that in mind at the El Camino Real project gets discussed.

 

Friends With Benefits - Friends in High Places

We have not had a Friends With Benefits post in a long time, but this one just came barreling out of the blue like a runaway freight train.  If you are going to have friends in high places, I cannot think of a higher perch than the White House.  The SF Chronicle has the story:

California is being denied $12 billion in federal transit funds. Here's how it'll hurt the Bay Area

A decision by the Biden administration to withhold $12 billion in federal transit funds from California could immediately affect services provided by the Bay Area’s 27 transit operators as they attempt to recover deep financial losses sustained during the pandemic, local officials say.

The denial of the transit funding is the latest twist in a long dispute over whether California’s 2013 Public Employees’ Pension Reform Act, which capped pension benefits for new employees, infringes on the collective bargaining rights of public transit workers in the eyes of the federal government.   In an Oct. 28 decision, the Labor Department reversed a determination it made in 2019 and essentially deemed California’s law improper because the pension rules changes were implemented via legislation and not bargained with public unions.

Of the federal transit funds California stands to lose, about $9.5 billion would come from the money earmarked for the state in the infrastructure bill approved by Congress last week. Also at stake in the decision is $2.5 billion in federal COVID relief funds allocated to sustain transit services during the pandemic, which had not yet gained Labor Department certification at the time of the ruling.  It’s the loss of the latter bucket of money that could be felt most immediately by Bay Area transit agencies and their riders.

The article goes on to describe the potential impact on BART, the transBay corridor project, Muni, and the Golden Gate Bridge district.  It doesn't mention Caltrain or the High-speed rail project by name, but you have to believe they are in the mix--or out of the mix in this case as the Feds throw their weight around.

I happened to get an cursory update on the Caltrain electrification project a week ago:  92 foundations for poles are complete, 67 poles have been installed and all 10 power transformers are in place.  86 new cars have been shipped from Switzerland, 73 are in Salt Lake City for final assembly and 1 is in test in Colorado.  There was no word on whether further Fed funds will be held up over the pension reform fight since this just popped into the public view.

ECR: The Newest City Dump

I wonder if, like the drain maintenance, Caltrans expects the City to pick up the trash and dumped furniture along El Camino?  In this instance, maybe it's SamTrans responsibility?

El Camino Real Project: Comment Period is Open

The CA Department of Transportation has opened it website soliciting comments on the proposed major changes to El Camino Real in B'game.  The site is found here:  https://ecralternatives.com/      We last touched on the project back in January here.  The project has the potential to completely change ECR, so please click through to the old post and the official site and refresh your memory on what Caltrans has up its sleeve.  The DOT notes that

There has been much progress since the scoping meeting in May 2020. We’ve completed a visual survey of the trees, studied many environmental resource areas, and worked with our design group to develop alternatives for the project. The next step in our environmental scoping process is to announce publication of the Caltrans Notice of Intent (NOI) to Prepare an Environmental Impact Report/Environmental Impact Statement (EIR/EIS).

Since we got a very modest amount of rain today, it was disappointing to see flooding reappear on ECR.  The questions for B'gamers are do we really need to cut down all of the Blue Gum eucalyptus trees, bury all of the utilities (great idea but $$$$$) and approve the whole enchilada instead of trying one section to see what people who live here think?  Or could we just fix the drainage and repave the surface?  You have until December 17th to weigh in. Here is the April puddle on ECR hours after the rain stopped.

Caltrain: Will the RR Survive?

Big money has jumped into the Caltrain tax measure RR.  We touched on the saga in May here and December here.  The Daily Post reports that the yes side has raised $1.7 million dollars with recent funds from Google, Adobe, the Giants, Amgen and the usual developers and unions.  The television commercials are running fast and furious and the in-fighting between SF, San Mateo County and Santa Clara County officials has moved off the front page.  But the local letters to the editor are running strongly against handing Caltrain more money.  The bike-rail commuters don't like how the bike cars were set up.  The fiscal hawks can't believe management didn't make cuts during the worst days of Covid sheltering.  And the equality folks complain that the passengers are generally more well-off than the general public so why subsidize them.

All this comes with a backdrop of cost of living/affordability concerns that may make the idea of more sales tax a hard sell.  The late start due to the in-fighting may be enough to sink RR this time around.  What a change from the pre-Covid predictions of growth from 65,000 daily riders in 2018, to 243,000 daily riders in 2040.  If the high-cost rail albatross could be killed and plucked there would be more than enough rail money to go around the whole state.