California high-speed rail plans unveiled

February 14, 2001 It became clearer that the state's high-speed train will run above ground in the Peninsula and South Bay -- including on so-called "Berlin Walls" that some cities fear will divide their communities and demolish homes and businesses, the San Mateo (Calif.) County Times reports.

The California High-Speed
Rail Authority, at a packed board meeting in San Francisco, unveiled its most
detailed engineering plan yet for the section of the $43-billion rail line that
will run along the Caltrain tracks on the way to Southern California.

Some of the cities along
the line will receive aboveground tracks, either next to the existing Caltrain
tracks or on structures similar to freeway overpasses. These cities include
South San Francisco, San Bruno, Belmont, San Carlos, Redwood City and San Jose.
The final two cities — Millbrae and San Francisco — will receive a
combination of above- and below-ground tracks.

There are essentially three
types of tracks the train will run on through the Bay Area.

One is a raised structure
that must be at least 18 feet tall and that some cities have compared with an
80-foot-wide freeway. The second option, typically the cheapest, is to simply
add two high-speed rail tracks next to the existing Caltrain rails. The final
option, which the riled Peninsula cities prefer but which is also the most
expensive, is to bury the tracks in an underground trench open to the surface.

From the Transbay Terminal
in San Francisco to Diridon station in San Jose, the tracks will rise and drop
to meet various engineering and community needs. For cities that still have two
options, the most likely choice appears to be the aboveground tracks.

The state has a $5.1-billion
budget for the San Francisco-to-San Jose section of the project after it allocates
$1 billion to the new Transbay Terminal.

It would be cheapest, at
about $5 billion, to build all aboveground rails, according to a Bay Area News
Group analysis of rail authority cost estimates released Thursday. It would
cost more than $1 billion extra, meanwhile, to run the trains through trenches
in the communities that want them, the figures show.

For example, it would cost
$664 million to run the four tracks through a trench in Menlo Park and
Atherton, which have sued the rail authority and are among the most vocal
critics of raised tracks. The state could chop more than half off that amount
and spend $244 million to build the tracks above ground through the 2.7-mile
stretch between wealthy properties.

San Mateo Councilman David
Lim, whose city wants a trench through the northern half, asked the board to
"reject the urge to go with the lowest common denominator."

"Without a trench
system, you would destroy a lot of the vitality and character of our downtown
San Mateo area," Lim said in an interview. "The support for the
project among residents goes down precipitously if you take away the trench
option."

Exacerbating the cost issue
is the fact that the rail authority still needs to raise three-fourths of the
money it has budgeted for the high-speed system.

Project officials will
continue to study the trench idea and are not yet sure whether they can afford
to build underground, local project manager Bob Doty said. The rail authority
board will likely select the alignment next year.

Michael Brownrigg, a councilman
in Burlingame, another city that wants a trench, said he suspects some
officials have already made up their minds.

Meanwhile, some other
cities that will not have underground tracks studied said they were
flabbergasted.

"I don’t know why
anyone got the idea that we wanted to continue with an aerial alignment,"
said Christine Wozniak, mayor of Belmont, which is opposed to the project if
the tracks are raised. Redwood City Councilwoman Barbara Pierce said her city
was "very upset" the trench option was removed in her city.

In San Francisco, the
high-speed rail tracks will run underground, while the Caltrain tracks will
stay where they are. Millbrae will have one high-speed rail track run underground
into its station, while the second bullet-train track will be added alongside
the Caltrain line.

Finally, it is also
possible that the two high-speed rail tracks will be buried in a tunnel in
Santa Clara as they approach the high-speed rail stop in San Jose.

Construction on the project
is expected to begin in 2012 and trains would start running by 2020.