High Speed Rail

By Cathy Baylock

When Bay Area Californians helped approve a huge bond offering to start High Speed Rail (HSR) in California, few of them understood the ramifications to their own towns on the Peninsula. There was no information about possible routes of the train and no understanding of how train service would support itself. Now that route information is being discussed and litigated, people are growing wary of the consequences of poor planning.

Background on Caltrain service on the Peninsula

Any discussion of High Speed Rail on the Peninsula has to begin with an understanding of the future planning of Caltrain's Electrification Program. Because Caltrain is under the economic constraint of having no dedicated funding source, it is forced to continually seek grants to bolster the three county annual contributions of approximately $5M each, and the fare-box revenue. Fare-box collections account for only 40% of its revenue to meet its yearly operating budget. On top of this, by having purchased some new rail stock since 1998 for the bullet trains, the life of the current diesel fleet is projected to last until 2025.

According to Mike Scanlon, CEO of Caltrain, the system must once again re-invent itself, as it did with the addition of the baby bullet service and the increase of daily trains from 36 to 98 daily (note that during the currently declared "fiscal crisis" 4 daily trains will be cut from the schedule beginning August 31; a service reduction mandated by lack of operating capital) to insure its survival. Electrification of the railroad has been determined to be the key to insuring that survival because it will bring High Speed Commuter Rail to the region.

Electrify-But How to Pay for it?

Electrification of the infrastructure is scheduled to be completed by 2015 with the first revenue generating Electric Multiple Unit (EMU) in service. After 2015, there would be an amalgam of electric as well as diesel operation until 2025 when it is projected that the diesel fleet would be finally replaced by EMU rolling stock. By 2025, Caltrain projects that it will be running up to 12 trains per hour in each direction at 90 mph. In order to do that the Federal Rail Authority mandates complete grade separation for any speed above 79 mph, which is the current speed of bullet trains. Caltrain is also awaiting FRA approval of the use of the lighter weight EMU railcars because it cannot achieve these schedule projections if they are compelled to replace the fleet with the now-required heavier trailer cars and electric locomotive engines. Caltrain is projecting a $750M price-tag for Electrification.

High Speed Rail on the Caltrain Rail Corridor which would run trains at 120 mph between San Jose and San Francisco will also require the grade separations and other infrastructure placements that Caltrain's Electrification Project requires. HSR is more likely to bring the necessary Federal funding that is most unlikely for Caltrain to secure on its own. That is the reason that the California High Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) and Caltrain entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in May 2009 to co-join the 2 projects.

Freight Service: Important to the Bay Area economy

Two other major considerations must be taken into account if HSR is to be added to the Caltrain Corridor. The first is the perpetual Right of Way (ROW) assigned to the Union Pacific Railroad for movement of freight. To date UP has not entered into any agreement with CHSRA to allow HSR to operate on any of its ROW either along the Caltrain Corridor or south of San Jose. The second consideration is that all construction of both Electrification and HSR must take place without interrupting existing Caltrain service. To date Caltrain/HSR outreach has not been able to answer questions arising from these considerations.

Currently in San Mateo there are three disjointed modes of public transportation, Samtrans, Caltrain, and BART, with a projected fourth, the Water Emergency Transit Authority (WETA) to be thrown into the mix with ferry service in South San Francisco and Redwood City to San Francisco and the East Bay. BART, whose sole "raison d'etre" for the costly extension to Millbrae was to provide direct, uninterrupted access to the San Francisco International Airport (thereby replacing the direct bus shuttle service from Caltrain to both SFO terminals) now requires that all Caltrain passengers must embark a BART train at Millbrae and then transfer to a second Bart train at San Bruno and then transfer to the Air Train upon arrival at SFO.

Promises Vs. Reality

HSR envisions a stop at the Millbrae Inter-model Station advertising a connection to SFO which would only duplicate the current indirect access. HSR is also envisioning up to 3 other as yet undetermined stops along the Caltrain Corridor which will increase dwell time so as to reduce the actual 120 mph speed between SJ and SF, again a duplication of service. Therefore the "no build" option which would terminate HSR at San Jose and require passengers to merely step across a platform to continue north to San Francisco or other points along the line is more practical and time efficient. It would also allow passengers to easily access the existing ACE and Amtrak Capitol Corridor routes. Although CHSRA might argue that this alternative would "interrupt" direct service to SF, it is no different than changing airplanes to make connecting flights to one's destination.

Conclusion

In the grand scheme of things, service to San Francisco is a spur line. If High Speed Rail is ever to continue past the Bay Area and serve cities like Portland and Seattle, it will do so by building somewhere east of Oakland-not by traversing the Golden Gate. The San Francisco spur line would be an incredibly disruptive construction project the likes of which the Peninsula has never seen. Both commercial and residential areas would be forever changed for minimal service improvements over a modernized Caltrain. Disrupting the freight service on the line would bring much more heavy truck traffic to Peninula roads and increase costs of many items like lumber, produce and goods arriving at the Port of Redwood City. It is time to consider terminating the High Speed Rail line in San Jose.