Comment deadline near for high-speed rail Comment deadline near for high-speed rail (August 18, 2004)

By Marion Softky
Almanac Staff Writer

It may be decades before bullet trains speed up and down California, and along Peninsula tracks, but public comments on the environmental reports for the proposed California High-Speed Rail System are due by August 31.

Since 1996, the nine-member California High-Speed Rail Authority has been planning a system that could zip passengers between Los Angeles and San Francisco in less than three hours and at speeds up to 220 miles per hour.

The period for public comments on the draft environmental impact report and environmental impact statement (EIR/EIS), issued in January, has been extended until August 31.

The proposed system will be expensive and years into the future. A vote on the $9 billion bond issue to launch the project has been deferred until 2006. The total cost will approach $35 billion, said rail expert Art Lloyd of Portola Valley, who serves on the board that runs Caltrain on the Peninsula.

Depending on which route is selected, the proposed system would have major impacts on different Peninsula cities, including Menlo Park, Atherton, Redwood City and East Palo Alto.

The EIR/EIS studies just two alternate routes in the Bay Area. One would cross the mountains from Los Banos across Pacheco Pass to Gilroy, and then up the Peninsula along the Caltrain route to San Francisco. The other would tunnel under Henry Coe State Park and serve San Jose and San Francisco.

A number of rail and environmental organizations are pushing for a route that would cross Altamont Pass, and come through Tracy and Livermore. This route, which was dropped from the EIR/EIS studies, would cross the Bay on a new high-level bridge near the old Dumbarton railroad bridge. It would go through East Palo Alto, east Menlo Park and North Fair Oaks, and join the main Caltrain line in Redwood City -- thus skipping Menlo Park, Atherton, and the Peninsula south to San Jose.

"There is a lot of pressure to reinstate Altamont Pass," said Mr. Lloyd.

Menlo Park, Atherton, and the Peninsula communities threaded by the bigger rail line would feel significant impacts. The high-speed rail line would require four tracks all the way, and grade crossings at every street, Mr. Lloyd said.

Trains would travel at a maximum of 110 miles per hour along the 47-mile corridor between San Jose and San Francisco.

INFORMATION

** For more information, call the California High-Speed Rail Authority at (916) 322-1419; or log onto www.cahighspeedrail.ca.gov.

** To make comments, go to www.cahighspeedrail.ca.gov and click on "Draft EIR/EIS." Comments may be mailed to: California High-Speed Train Draft Program EIR/EIS Comments, 925 L St., Suite 1425, Sacramento, CA 95814. Comments may be faxed to (916) 322-0827, Attn: California High Speed Train Draft Program EIR/EIS Comments.

E-mail a friend a link to this story.