I should have included you when I emailed the City
Manager.

Margaret Fruth

> Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2007 10:02:08 -0800 (PST)
> From: "M. Fruth" <mafruth@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Dumbarton Scoping Comments + Freight
> To: dsboesch@menlopark.org
>
> I would like to share my scoping comments for the
> Dumbarton Railroad Environmental Impact Report
> (EIR). I believe I have determined the reason this
> project continues without any evidence of sufficient
> ridership. One of the CalTrain employees let slip
> the fact that federal law requires commuter heavy
> rail lines to accept freight trains as well.
>
> I do not know how light rail is affected by this,
> but I suspect that if you facilitate light rail and
> heavy rail on the same line, freight would be part
> of the package.
>
> A subsidy of $60.00 per passenger ride is too high
> to comply with federal funding rules. But whoever
> wants freight does not play by the rules; so far
> the information from CalTrain does not mention
> freight traffic.
>
=====================================================
> Date: Thu, 30 Nov 2006 00:22:31 -0800 (PST)
> From: "M. Fruth" <mafruth@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Dumbarton Scoping Comments
> To: Dumbarton_comments@caltrain.com
> CC: City.Council@menlopark.org
>
> Please place me on the Caltrain notification list
> again. The last communication I received was April,
> 2004. I have been watching this project for about
> ten
> to fifteen years, but my and others’ oral and
> written
> communications have vanished. Please locate all of
> them and make them a part of the scoping process and
> the final Environmental Impact Report (EIR).
>
> Also, please consider this a formal protest for the
> short response period allowed. Two weeks to as
> little
> as one day (November 29, 2006 to November 30, 2006).
>
> Before beginning the EIR, please locate the money
> for
> mitigations, as required and mandated by the
> California Environmental Quality Act. If you don’t
> have the money for mitigations, you don’t have a
> legal
> project. Please include money to mitigate all of
> the
> effects of the legally mandated rail traffic.
>
> Please make clear in all your written documents that
> when you build heavy rail, freight cannot be barred
> from the same route. Facilitating freight traffic
> may
> be what is driving this proposal.
>
> Please consider mitigation needs of all the
> neighbors:
> Redwood City, including unincorporated areas, Bell
> Haven and the Flood Triangle in Menlo Park, East
> Palo
> Alto, Newark, Fremont, Union City, and our animal
> neighbors in the various wildlife refuge and parks.
>
> Ridership has not been demonstrated. Please
> document
> sufficient ridership to obtain subsidy funds. The
> current estimate seems highly speculative, even more
> so than prior estimates, having almost tripled in
> volume without explanation. Apparently it would
> require a subsidy of $60.00 per trip, and would
> remove
> approximately one-thirty-second to .one tenth of the
> cars from the auto bridge. The Metropolitan
> Transportation Commission (MTC) study showed the
> Dumbarton Bridge commute was one of the LEAST
> congested of the 150+ commutes measured.
>
> Please include the cost of electrification.
>
> Was the Mountain View Railroad Spur ever reviewed?
> Please add it as Rail Alternative C.
>
> Please make Light Rail the Rail Alternative D, which
> has the added political advantage of being
> incompatible with freight.
>
> Please make a new route around, not through, the Don
> Edwards National Wildlife Refuge Rail Alternative E,
> and minimize, or better, avoid, impacts on it and on
> the San Francisco Bay National Wildlife, Menlo
> Park's
> Bayfront Park, East Palo Alto's Ravenswood Open
> Space
> Preserve, and Palo Alto's Baylands Nature Preserve,
> Coyote Hills Regional Park, the Alameda Creek
> Regional
> Trail, and Ardenwood Historic Farm.
>
> Please consider the High Speed Bus Alternative, in
> both directions.
>
> Also look at realistically estimated transit time,
> actual time, not wishful time.
>
> Traveling from Union City to Sunnyvale in Silicon
> Valley, using any of the three lines in the East Bay
> and traveling around the bottom of the Bay, is
> shorter
> in mileage than traveling from Union City to
> Sunnyvale
> in Silicon Valley by way of the Dumbarton Railroad
> Spur and Redwood City. Your EIR should address
> this.
> Please include the Mountain View Railroad Spur in
> your
> comparative review of the different routes.
>
> Please make your conclusions fit the data, rather
> than
> reach a conclusion and then seek to find or invent
> data to fit it.
>
> Also, please include noise, vibration, privacy,
> grade
> separations, and compensation for property loss as
> mandated by the U.S. Supreme Court. Grade
> separations
> and compensation for property loss will be the
> largest
> expenses, in my opinion.
>
> I recommend that you reprogram these funds to
> electrification of the main line.
>
> Sincerely,
>
>
> Margaret Fruth
> 1007 Peggy Lane
> Menlo Park, CA 94025
>
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Received on Tue Jan 9 19:03:20 2007