Panel of Contributors: Green light for Measure A projects Panel of Contributors: Green light for Measure A projects (November 10, 2004)

By Arthur L. Lloyd

Passage and renewal of San Mateo County's Measure A on the November 2 ballot signals that there will be continued major improvements in transportation, regardless of mode.

Much-needed highway and local road improvements can go forward so as to relieve highway congestion as our county grows. Public transportation, and its users, will benefit tremendously as infrastructure is improved and more facilities and services added.

Amont the major projects will be electrification of Caltrain. This was first started in the 1920s by the Southern Pacific Railroad, which had purchased 85 lighter weight passenger cars that could be adapted to electrification. The Great Depression stopped the project, followed by World War II, and no more was said until recent years by the Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board, operators of CalTrain.

Electrification will speed up the service (faster acceleration and deceleration); reduce carbon dioxide emissions to virtually zero; and cut the high pitch noise of diesel engines. Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C, and Boston all have electrified suburban commuter service. Now it is time for the West Coast to do the same.

BART is electrified as is street car service in Sacramento, San Francisco and San Jose, as well as San Diego and Los Angeles. But that is more local in character.

Dumbarton rail service will now have assured funding. Utilizing the corridor from Newark to Redwood City will provide much-needed relief from Dumbarton Bridge congestion. Six commuter-hour trains will originate in Union City each morning and head to Redwood City. Three will go north to San Francisco and three south to San Jose, all returning in the afternoon peak period.

Caltrain will go closer to downtown San Francisco with the new TransBay Terminal project now slated to move ahead. Trains will continue from the present terminal at 4th and King Streets to the new station at First and Mission Streets. Southern Pacific planned this way back in 1914 but World War I stopped it. They even had their general office configured in a U-shape so trains would come directly to the location at One Market Street, across from the Ferry Building. Now, plans that have been shelved for 90 years will come to fruition.

The BART extension to SF0 and Millbrae is showing signs of improved ridership but operational deficits, covered by SamTrans, have been debilitating. Measure A funds can now be utilized, carefully, to offset these costs.

SamTrans will be better able to improve and institute partial express bus service in the heavily utilized El Camino corridor, which extends from Daly City to Palo Alto. Synchronized traffic signals and buses that do not stop at every corner will step up service. Better connecting service to CalTrain stations will be in the mix as well as shuttle service to and from CalTrain and BART stations to selected businesses.

Also in the mix is the proposal for ferry service from South San Francisco and Redwood City to the Ferry Building in San Francisco, similar to what is now operated from the Marin County cities of Sausalito and Corte Madera and from Alameda and Oakland.

Arthur L. Lloyd is a member of the board that operates Caltrain and SamTrans. He is a resident of Portola Valley and a member of the Almanac's Panel of Contributors.

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