I recently received copies of several emails from
Margaret Fruth. I gather that she is a resident
of Menlo Park and interested in the Dumbarton
Rail project. Her comments are noteworthy and
worth passing on to everyone interested in
potential rail developments in our communities.
Martin
=============================================

  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

-- 
**********************
Martin Engel
1621 Stone Pine Lane
Menlo Park, CA 94025
650:323-1670
martinengel@earthlink.net
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