Comments on: my rail plan: abandon all hope

By: Aaron Priven

Aaron Priven — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 21:23:33 +0000

“San Jose is the largest city in the Bay Area”

yes, because before Proposition 13 it annexed neighboring areas and even whole cities like Willow Glen and Alviso, something San Francisco wasn’t allowed to do because of the county boundary. If San Francisco had annexed land the way San Jose did in the postwar years then Oakland, Berkeley, Daly City, etc. would all be part of San Francisco and San Francisco would be the largest city.

Having said that, both cities are important and should be served by high speed rail.

The Altamont route is better not because it serves the East Bay but because it is the only route that will provide a high speed link not only between San Francisco/San Jose and Los Angeles but also between San Francisco/San Jose and Sacramento. Going via Pacheco throws this potential market away.

By: Capricious Commuter

Capricious Commuter — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 02:03:37 +0000

Reedman, I hate to rain on your rant, but you do the HSRA wrong when you say it’s avoided committing. The authority was so committed to Pacheco alignment that it didn’t include it in its first environmental impact study. Because of that decision, the athority had to spend another couple years studying both options.

As for Pacheco supporters, you’ll find them everywhere except the East Bay. The most recent word on this was San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, who came out unequivocally for Pacheco. The MTC voted to support Pacheco and no other alignment in 2003, notwithstanding four votes from “hugely more powerful” Alameda and Contra Costa counties.

Oh, they’re committed, all right. The only reason you’re not hearing anything from the authority members right now is that they are supposed to keep quiet until the environmental process is done. Otherwise, the process might not seem to be weighing all alternatives equally.

By: Reedman

Reedman — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 23:14:51 +0000

The largest city in Northern California is San Jose. Any high speed rail project has to deal
with this. Going to Sacramento, Oakland, and San Francisco needs to
be second priority. The HSR group has been choking on this reality since it was formed.
They have done everything possible to avoid committing to the Pacheco Pass route, which
is the most logical one from a population and geography standpoint, because it would be
perceived as a slap in the face to the above mentioned cities which are hugely more
powerful politically.

By: Capricious Commuter

Capricious Commuter — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 08:59:50 +0000

It seems to me that the biggest obstacle to high-speed rail is that it’s too big a mouthful for any electorate to swallow. We already have airports built and jets flying. We have freeways and no shortage of cars. Expanding capacity in those modes seems much more possible than creating an entirely new mode from scratch, with a price tag in the tens of billions.

Here’s my bright idea: build a huge parking lot in Tracy and run the line down to LA from there. That way, you can introduce people who would normally be driving to the idea that they can cut off the longest part of their trip. Also, people could take regular Amtrak trains to connect to HSR, only the trip would four hours instead of 10-15.

That way, you can get the whole thing started at a less astronomical price, and show people the beauty of the idea, without worrying about the whole Altamont/Pacheco pass fiasco or trying to raise $50 billion right away.

Of course, I’m in no way qualified to fix this problem, and I realize that my idea could just as well lead to a big parking lot with tumbleweeds blowing across it.

The thing that my basic common sense tells me is that if we, today, posess the resources to build an ultra-fast rail system into all the major downtowns in California, you’d think that at least one of those cities would have already built even a moderately faster rail system serving its suburbs.

None have, and they haven’t because the money just hasn’t been available.

By: Hayden K.

Hayden K. — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 03:41:38 +0000

I’d like to have high hopes for high-speed rail between the Bay Area (and maybe even Sacramento) and LA, partly because I’d take it, but also because it provides a great opportunity to increase north-south travel without further increasing flights from Bay Area airports. If it really worked, perhaps it would even reduce intra-California flights!

Benefits include not only (potentially) convenient and less-air-polluting rail travel, but also room for the airports (OAK and SFO) to increase flights without requiring additional (OAK) or moved (SFO) runways in the Bay.

By: Leslie Stewart

Leslie Stewart — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 19:45:04 +0000

Hey, Erik, thanks for confirming my impression of what was going on here. I have been researching this plan and was surprised to find that the full text was only available on the Regional Rail Plan site on Aug. 27 or 28 when the deadline for comments was Aug. 29. And there weren’t very many specifics on the next steps — grand scope is one thing but implementation is apparently left pretty much up in the air. I suspected the deadline might be to blame and that seems to be what you heard also.

Leslie