The Great Wall
By John Horgan
Saturday, October 27th, 2007 at 7:30 am in Uncategorized.
Don’t look now, but San Mateo County seems to be heading for a major change. And, if it happens, it won’t be pretty. Plans are afoot to encourage and promote a high-speed rail line along the Caltrain route all the way through the Peninsula. It would be part of a grandiose effort to link Los Angeles and San Francisco with such a system. For some reason, many local authorities (but not all) are touting this as some sort of transit salvation. But for whom? Certainly not the pleasant suburban towns that make up the county. If the rail dreamers have their way _ and, fortunately, they have been stymied so far by both the governor and the horrendous price tag _ communities like Menlo Park, Atherton, Redwood City, San Mateo, Burlingame and San Bruno will undergo a facelift that only The Joker would find weirdly appealing. That’s because high-speed rail requires free and unfettered rein. In other words, no grade-level traffic crossings. What would be required would be massive grade separations which would change the ambience of the affected villages dramatically. Burlingame, for example, would need no fewer than six grade separation projects as things stand now. Any chance of retaining its boutique atmosophere would fly right out the quaint window as The Great Wall of San Mateo County became a reality. Just check out what has occurred on the Caltrain corridor in Belmont and San Carlos for examples. And, we haven’t even mentioned the possibility of lines of electrical power poles and what those would look like. So far, there has been only minimal opposition to the high-speed rail concept. Expect a lot more in coming months and years when the stakes and impacts become more stark and really hit home.
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October 29th, 2007 at 8:08 am
Grade separation is to trains what freeways are to cars, buses and trucks. One could call Highway 101 a great wall across the Peninsula, especially far enough south for there to be significant development on its Bayward side. If you go back to the 1920’s, there was already a big push for grade separation, and many cities back East dealt with it well before I was born.
I work and live near Belmont and San Carlos… to me, their grade separation doesn’t feel like a wall, because the tracks are far enough up in the air to preserve street-level sight lines. I look forward to the new 31st Avenue underpass in San Mateo that is part of the planned Bay Meadows redevelopment. As for Burlingame… sooner or later, after one too many kids dies cutting across the tracks, they’ll either get behind grade separation or, more likely, make a big push in the legislature and/or the courts for municipal rail speed limits in quaint little cities like their own, Menlo Park and Mountain View. In my book, too many kids have already died because they fought grade separation as hard as they did. Those kids aren’t dying in Belmont and San Carlos.
October 29th, 2007 at 1:55 pm
You are probably correct about the Burlingame situation. Preservationists will fight six grade separations to the bitter end. As for kids (and others) who die on the tracks, all we can ask that people pay attention when they get near the rail line. It’s that simple. Caltrain goes to great lengths to warn folks that a train is approaching. It’s hard to figure (unless it’s a suicide attempt) how and why anyone would fail to be on the alert if there’s going to be an iron horse in the neighborhood.