Peninsula cities need strong high-speed rail voice

Editorial: Peninsula cities need strong high-speed rail voice - Inside Bay Area

Editorial: Peninsula cities need strong high-speed rail voice
MediaNews editorial
Posted: 05/13/2009 12:01:00 AM PDT

IT'S TIME FOR San Mateo County cities to be heard. Loudly.

They need to become a significant factor in ongoing plans to electrify the existing Caltrain commuter line in concert with the creation of a new electrified high-speed rail system ticketed for the same Peninsula corridor.

The stakes are high. For a number of local communities — especially San Bruno, Burlingame, San Mateo, Redwood City, Atherton and Menlo Park — the future of longtime residential neighborhoods and, in some cases, thriving downtown business districts may well hang in the balance.

This is not an idle warning. What is being planned in private could alter these towns, and more, for generations to come.

The two major worries involve the anticipated construction of high-rise grade separations, in frequent concert with eminent domain, that would split cities in half and destroy homes and businesses forever in the process.

It's not a pretty picture. But the wheels, so to speak, are in motion.

A primary impetus was the November 2008 election success of Proposition 1A, which was approved by California voters — including those on the Peninsula.

The ballot measure's success has provided nearly $10 billion to get the electrified high-speed system (designed to run eventually from San Diego to Sacramento and San Francisco) started.

Its eventual total cost is expected to run many times more than that initial figure.

The Peninsula's Caltrain corridor is seen as ideal territory for high-speed rail. The right-of-way (which would be widened considerably to include high-speed trains) from San Jose to San Francisco is already owned and operated by Caltrain's taxpayers, including those in San Mateo County.

In addition, Caltrain officials, based in San Carlos and faced with increasingly serious financial problems of their own, want to electrify their system. High-speed rail can help to facilitate that ambitious goal.

The rush also is on to grab billions of dollars of federal stimulus dollars for early use on the Peninsula, on the Anaheim-Los Angeles corridor (currently served by the Metrolink commuter rail system), and in the San Joaquin Valley.

The aim of the high-speed rail advocates is to begin construction on those rail sections by 2012. Time is of the essence.

San Mateo County cities urgently need a seat at the bargaining table. The interests of the Peninsula, so far, are only barely on the radar screen at the state level.

The real political muscle is in Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Jose, Sacramento and other power centers.

Frustrated, Atherton and Menlo Park have taken the bold step of suing to try to protect their communities.

Other neighboring county towns have asked to be involved in lobbying efforts, but not the legal action. Their top priority has been a subway — similar to BART's North County underground route south of Daly City to Millbrae — rather than the installation of unsightly berms or concrete viaducts.

BART's link with San Francisco International Airport is a pair of soaring viaducts. Belmont and San Carlos feature Caltrain berms.

Potentially affected municipalities involved in the latest electrified rail effort need to band together. If they don't, their individual recommendations and complaints will be watered down and muted to the point of irrelevance.

A tri-county Caltrain Joint Powers Board already has a vested interest in full cooperation with the high-speed rail people. Caltrain's hard-pressed fiscal condition virtually mandates such a posture.

The Peninsula's elected state representatives, so far, have been reluctant to come out loud and clear for preserving the historic ambience of the region's relatively small cities.

There is enormous pressure on the lawmakers from a variety of sources to fall into line.

Seven months after the election, there is no firm set of high-speed rail/Caltrain electrification plans. These are said to be more months away.

The eventual engineering details, some of which will need to be available for examination as federal authorities weigh pleas for stimulus money, are going to be critically important here.

Few areas of California would be more severely affected by the introduction of high-speed trains in concert with an existing (electrified) commuter line than San Mateo County (and portions of Santa Clara County), if the setup is implemented poorly with little or no consideration for the quality of life or individual property rights.

It's going to be up to the Peninsula's own residents, along with its elected officials, to make sure that a potentially highly detrimental proposal doesn't become an inevitable, irreversible and damaging reality.