Caltrain board delays vote on high-speed rail route Caltrain board delays vote on high-speed rail route (August 10, 2005)

The Caltrain board of directors is not ready to say which route it will support to bring high-speed trains from Southern California up the Peninsula to San Francisco -- when and if they come a decade or more hence.

The nine-member board representing three counties served by Caltrain recently postponed a decision until its meeting in September so it could get a recommendation from its Citizens Advisory Committee.

The Silicon Valley High Speed Rail Coalition is seeking support for a route that crosses Pacheco Pass, and comes up the Peninsula through San Jose.

The Sierra Club, East Bay cities, several train riders associations, and Atherton asked the board to postpone its decision until a current study of a route over the Altamont Pass is complete -- later this year or next.

That route would come across the Dumbarton corridor over a new bridge and meet the main Caltrain line in Redwood City -- so trains traveling 110 miles per hour would not go through Atherton, Menlo Park, or the south Peninsula. San Jose would be served by a spur line from the East Bay.

"We didn't want to be pressured ," said Caltrain board member Art Lloyd of Portola Valley.

There's still lots of time to decide. The $10 billion bond issue to fund the high-speed trains is not due to come before California voters until 2008.

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