New hope for high-speed rail in CA?

Almanac : Palo Alto digs in for train-tunnel battle

alo Alto digs in for train-tunnel battle
City joins new Peninsula consortium of cities, accusing Caltrain and high-speed rail agency of 'duplicity' relating to the tunneling alternative

by Gennady Sheyner
Palo Alto Online Staff

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Palo Alto is bracing for a tough, angry and uphill fight to keep the tunneling option on the table for a proposed high-speed rail system through the Peninsula.

Both city officials and residents accused the rail authority of being duplicitous relating to statements made prior to last November's statewide vote approving Proposiition 1A, the rail project, and statements being made today.

The City Council agreed Monday night to join a consortium of Peninsula cities to collectively negotiate with the California High-Speed Rail Authority, the agency charged with building and operating the 800-mile, $40 billion train line linking San Francisco and Los Angeles.

The council also finalized a comprehensive, 62-item list of concerns about the San Francisco-to-San Jose section of the line and drafted a letter to Caltrain, asking it to revise its proposed agreement being negotiated with the rail authority, with the next meeting Thursday morning.

But council members expressed angry skepticism that the two agencies will reconsider their terms of agreement is unlikely to sway either. Both the rail authority and the Peninsula Joint Powers Authority -- which oversees Caltrain -- are scheduled to vote on a memorandum of understanding Thursday that would designate a "four-track grade-separated" alignment along the Caltrain corridor as the configuration of the new train line.

The proposed agreement contradicts the high-speed rail agency's repeated assertions that all options -- including deep underground tunnels -- would be carefully evaluated in the upcoming environmental impact review.

Deputy City Manager Steve Emslie said high-speed rail officials have long maintained that all options are on the table but said the proposed memorandum suggests the exact opposite. He said Caltrain officials have indicated that they are unlikely to change the memorandum along lines Palo Alto is proposing.

But he said staff still plans to attend the Thursday-morning meeting of the Caltrain board to present the city's case.

"We think it's a duplicitous message and we intend on pointing this out," Emslie said.

Councilman Pat Burt also said he was discouraged by the response from high-speed rail and Caltrain officials. He said he has become less hopeful about the city's prospects for making a difference through persuasion and collaboration.

"It's going to be a tough political fight and we're going to be both willing to do it and be effective at it," Burt said.

The rail authority plans to route the line from San Francisco to Los Angeles via Pacheco Pass through San Jose rather than an alternate route via Altamont Pass and Livermore.

The trains would travel along the Caltrain corridor on grade-separated tracks, with stops in San Francisco, Millbrae and San Jose. The agency is also considering a stop at either Redwood City or Palo Alto. Rail authority officials are just starting to put together the environmental impact report on the Peninsula section of the line between San Francisco and San Jose, and have set April 6 as a deadline for public comments on the scope of the environmental review.

Domenic Spaethling, the rail authority's regional manager for the San Francisco-to-San Jose section of the line, said Monday night that the four-track alignment mentioned in the memorandum is consistent with Caltrain's long-term vision. He said the four-track configuration to which the draft memorandum refers wouldn't necessarily preclude the tracks from being stacked, with two running above ground and two in tunnels.

The bulk of the design work has yet to be conducted, he said.

"I understand their concern, but so far we've done nothing on the project EIR" Spaethling told the Weekly at the council meeting.

Palo Alto's letter to the Caltrain board, approved 8-0 by Council (with Sid Espinosa absent), asks for "removal of any commitment to specific track design or operational condition without public input and required environmental review."

The city also pushed forward with its plan to form an alliance of Peninsula cities that could negotiate with the rail authority. Councilwoman Yoriko Kishimoto has been meeting with officials from other Peninsula cities on an ad hoc basis for the past several months to discuss common concerns about the rail line.

The council voted 8-0 Monday night to endorse a memorandum of understanding, drafted by City Attorney Gary Baum, that would form the basis for a consortium of Peninsula cities.

The memorandum would still have to be approved by the legislative bodies in the various jurisdictions before the consortium could become official -- only Atherton has approved it so far, but other cities are expected to join, Kishimoto said.

But even though all councilmen supported the idea of forming the new group, a few expressed concerns with the language.

Councilman Larry Klein convinced his colleagues to delete the clause granting the chairman of the consortium the power to break tie votes.

"I'd hate to be in a situation where we convinced the authority that this consortium speaks for us and then we find ourselves on the back end of a 6-2 vote and all of a sudden we're isolated without a voice of our own," Councilman Greg Schmid said.

But Baum and Kishimoto reassured the council that the city could withdraw from the consortium at any time or express an opinion independent of any consortium position.

Kishimoto said the group would allow the cities to hold regular dialogues and potentially apply for funds collectively.

Last Friday, the group discussed a plan to hold a two-week "design charette" in the next few months focusing on the high-speed-rail project. The charette, an intense workshop featuring top designers, architects and engineers, could help the cities and rail authorities come up with the best urban design for the new line.

Kishimoto said joining an official consortium would also reaffirm the cities' unity and common desire to get a well-designed high-speed-rail system running through the Peninsula.

"There is just this image of we either hang together or we hang separately," Kishimoto said.

Former Mayor Mike Cobb, who served 12 years on the council, was one of 14 speakers, most of whom urged the council to fight the high-speed rail plan vigorously, including joining a lawsuit filed by Atherton and Menlo Park as an amicus curiae, or friend of the court.

Cobb said a primary responsibility of council members is to speak for and fight on behalf of residents when there is a threat.

The high-speed rail project is a "profound threat" to Palo Alto, he said.

He accused Rod Diridon, a principal spokesman for the high-speed-rail authority, of duplicity in comments prior to the statewide election last November that all alternatives would be considered versus the "monumental arrogance" Diridon displayed in mid-March when he told the council that the route decision was already decided.

Resident William Cutler showed a projection of the Great Pyramid at Giza to represent the amount of material that would go into a mile or so of a raised rail structure through Palo Alto.

He said an elevated structure for the tracks would be "by far the largest structure and by far the ugliest in the history of Palo Alto."

Resident Jim McFall said his illustrations of an elevated wall for tracks can't compete with a pyramid, but of greater concern is research he has done that indicates the existing right of way is really 70 feet, not 75 feet as claimed by the rail project backers, which they say is wide enough to accommodate four tracks.

But McFall said there is a 6-foot easement along people's rear property lines and asked whether that has been included in the width calculations.

Longtime council observer Herb Borock said if Caltrain and the high-speed rail authority agree on a memorandum that should be interpreted as a change of the basic "project description" and should trigger a completly new environmental-impact scoping process.

Amy Friedman, a resident of Park Boulevard whose home backs up on the Caltrain tracks, said there was no notice of the implications of high-speed-rail going through her back yard when Proposition 1A was voted on last November.

"Our property value has gone down. It's very discouraging," she said.