If only our Menlo Park City Council had the cojones to write such a letter! Atherton has spearheaded a rational approach to Caltrain development for a decade or more. It has opposed High-Speed Rail in any permutation on the Caltrain corridor. It has stood firmly in opposition to Caltrain corridor development and expansion.

Let's be clear here: Menlo Park Administration sees benefits for itself from any capital expenditures on the Caltrain corridor, for whatever reason. Government bureaucracies thrive on the churning of tax dollars regardless of their source. Budgets and head-counts benefit. Resumes are enriched.

Fellow residents and taxpayers, we are being had.

Menlo Park has the 10th most popular Caltrain station. SRI employees drive 50% less than typical office park employees. Electrification will provide more capacity and help even more cars get off the highways. Caltrain ridership has doubled over the last decade and many rush hour trains are standing room only. Menlo Park will benefit substantially from Caltrain electrification.

The Uber-wealthy of Atherton that barely use CalTrain services as it is need to accept the fact that the rest of us that commute up and down the peninsula without a chauffeur need real options for efficient mass transportation. If the residents of Atherton want to have the electrified line run through a trench in their back yards, then they can pony up the money to do it. Electrified train around the world run faster, cheaper, cleaner and safer than the filthy, noisy and slow antiquated diesel locomotives currently in operation.

"Atherton opposes change and progress? I'm totally shocked," said no one ever.

Wow, talk about NIMBYism! This small wealthy suburb with less than a mile of Caltrain tracks wants to torpedo an electrification project that will benefit hundreds of thousands of people throughout the Bay Area. Rich people always seem to feel their rights are more important than everybody else's.

[Post removed. Please focus your comments on the issue, and not personal comments about Atherton residents.]

Barbara Wood said:
> Less than a mile of train tracks runs through
> Atherton, but that hasn't stopped the small
> town from making an outsized effort to
> fight changes in rail service.

This article contradicts this lead paragraph. For example:

"...one of the alternatives to be considered should be putting the tracks at below ground level. "We should consider doing some kind of a trench...".

Uh, trenching the tracks would be making "changes in rail service."

It is entirely possible for someone to be a proponent of spending money to improve public transit, but also believe that the approach Caltrain is proposing is less effective both short-term and long-term than other approaches.

Adina wrote:
> Electrification will provide more capacity and help even more cars get off the highways.

No. Wrong.

More trains can provide more capacity. More trains can get more automobiles off the road.

More passenger railroad cars can provide more capacity. More passenger railroad cars can get more automobiles off the road.

Modern railroad cars and modern diesel trains can provide more capacity and help even more cars get off the highways.

@peninsula resident: Electric trains have lower mass because they're not hauling generators and diesel fuel with them, so can accelerate and brake faster. This means lower head-ways and more trains can be run on the same tracks.

This does of course mean more congestion close to the tracks if the train isn't grade separated, however it should mean fewer automobiles on the highways if there is more ridership on the train.

When I read the Travel Section of the newspaper it shows a beautiful new AMTRAK locomotive - state of the art - fuel efficient. Note that the newer CALTRAIN locomotives generate their own electricity much as the newer cars do.
After watching this discussion on the Palo Alto CC Meeting it became clear that there is no added benefit for electrification for the users. It only benefits the contractors. I think the current technology in locomotives has surpassed whatever electric locomotive they will come up with. All of the overhead wires? Taking out trees? Intrusion of added equipment in residential areas? Preparation for HSR which will never happen on the peninsula? It will be a MAG-LEV - not a HSR version.
More power to you if you can turn the tide on this project. A waste of taxpayer dollars.
What did anyone get here - 6 trips per hour vs 5 at peak times. WOW - just add more cars.

PatrickD wrote:
> Electric trains have lower mass

While this is usually the case, my point is that there are other ways to accomplish faster travel times, that include using modern, lighter railroad cars and clean diesel trains. Edina's post makes it sound like electrification is the only way to improve travel times and increase capacity, which is just not the case.

Caltrain is being very, very shortsighted and in the long run is wasting money in their approach to managing long-term growth. Here are just a couple of the issues with their approach:

1) they are depending on HSR funding to electrify the right-of-way. HSR is looking less and less likely to happen (certainly not with Prop1A money, and using cap-and-trade would be illegal). As the Atherton response points out, Caltrain has not objectively looked into alternatives to electrification, which is a huge disservice to commuters, as they've put all their capacity-planning "eggs" in the HSR basket; when that falls through, Caltrain will have to scramble to come up with a plan B. In the mean time, trains get more and more crowded, forcing more cars onto the roads.

2) Their lack of planning is going to result in INCREASES in congestion, and more trains (diesel or electric) will result in more gate downtime, resulting in longer and longer traffic jams at rail crossings. Caltrain needs to trench, and trenching is the right approach; among other reasons its the most seismically safe, and will allow the trains to go faster.