Here's a little something that requires clarification about a clarification. Congresswoman Anna Eshoo, Democrat from a congressional district (14th) on the Bay Area Peninsula, gave a press conference recently in which HSR was discussed. She issued a statement; it was misunderstood. And she subsequently issued a clarification. Below is that clarification.
Here is my clarification of her clarification.
1. Congresswoman Eshoo wants a high-speed train to run on the Caltrain Corridor.
2. True high-speed rail runs on dedicated, exclusive tracks. Track sharing is only for slower, Amtrak types of passenger rail.
3.Against all logic and standard practice, she wants those high-speed trains to run on the same two tracks as the local, heavy-rail commuter line runs now. Those tracks are also used by the Union Pacific freight carrier.
4. She opposes the far more sensible solution to terminate the high-speed rail route in San Jose, where it can branch off either by sending passengers up the 55 miles of Peninsula to a dead-end terminal in San Francisco, or continuing up to the state capitol, Sacramento.
5. An adequate commuter rail system (which Caltrain is not) could easily complete the high-speed journey from San Jose with waiting trains that run only on the Caltrain corridor. While this does not meet the literal requirements of the authorizing legislation, it can meet the intent, and an amendment from the Legislature is all it takes to make this alternative legal. (But that's politically unacceptable.)
5.1. What Ms. Eshoo ignores is that if High-Speed Rail does not come up the Caltrain corridor on four tracks, it will save over $10 billion dollars. It will also not be for "free" to convert the current two tracks to high-speed rail use. Indeed, the costs will be high. The promise of two tracks now does not obviate the later need for two more.
6. Here's the keystone to the problem: If HSR comes to the Caltrain corridor, it will never leave. The Rail Authority will, in time, demand to build what they have planned for many years, an elevated four-track viaduct, and build it as soon as funding becomes available.
7. The Congresswoman confuses two problems; High-Speed rail and Caltrain. Despite their respective efforts to con-fuse them, those are distinct problems and each needs to be solved with it's own set of solutions; not lumped together.
8. It would seem that Ms. Eshoo wants HSR for two reasons: the several billion dollars federal stimulus funding promised to California, and preventing Caltrain from going bankrupt. Neither is adequate justification for high-speed rail in California.
9. Like most Democrats who support high-speed rail, Ms. Eshoo fails to acknowledge that if ever built, these will be trains affordable only to the well to do. (As they are in the rest of the world.) They will not benefit the much larger part of California's population of working stiffs with lower incomes. This sounds like an agenda from what used to be called the "Limousine Liberals."
With all due respect, Congresswoman Eshoo, in this case you are wrong about what you believe is best for California and for the Bay Area Peninsula. As it happens, I'm cynical enough to also know that you won't change your mind.
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Clarification of High-Speed Rail Announcement
Following Monday's announcement by Congresswoman Anna G. Eshoo, Senator Joe Simitian and Assemblyman Rich Gordon, there appears to be some misperception about what they have proposed.
Congresswoman Eshoo, Senator Simitian and Assemblyman Gordon wish to make clear that they are not calling for high-speed trains to stop in San Jose, forcing riders from the south, for instance, to transfer to Caltrain to reach San Francisco. There would be no transfers. The idea is to upgrade the Caltrain corridor so that high-speed trains can run on the same tracks.
High-speed trains would run northbound and southbound all the way between San Francisco and Los Angeles, as required by Prop 1A. On the Peninsula, they would operate on the same tracks as Caltrain, overtaking slower Caltrain trains at certain passing points, just as Caltrain's baby bullet trains overtake and pass local trains today.
