Hon. Mayor and Councilmembers

Present at the demonstration of the French Bullet Train which reached
over 357 mph was a delegation from California. (This still did not
surpass the Maglev, already being tested in California.)

The California High Speed Rail officials have already received a
delegation from Japan and will visit that country in turn, all with a
view to instituting a bullet train in California.

A draft of the Bay Area Regional Rail Plan is due this month and will be
finalized in July '07 to include HSR.

Caltrain is just receiving and applying for further funding for the
changes to be made along the Peninsula Corridor which may include the
High Speed Rail Route from San Francisco south.

Caltrain service is stretched thin now and the circulating Resolution
will just put a spoke in the wheels. It will also divert money to
outside consultants who will only learn what the SAMTRANS and CALTRAIN
staff and officials already know. There is a vast expensive empire of
employees working on the changes to CALTRAIN.

There should be no more changes in service until the Regional Rail Plan
is revealed in July.

There should be no more housing placed beside the present air and noise
polluting
railroad until the high speed rail route is finalized and included in
the Regional Rail Plan, with electrification the first step.

It is ill-advised to now listen to the few disgruntled passengers who
expect monster, polluting trains to cater to their individual needs.

Those who have odd hours must rely on other means or, as in the case of
a very few vocal self-serving travellers, pay the price of a service
available from door to door.
 
Taxpayers are already subsidizing the passengers of Caltrain at 60%. It
would be less expensive to give the odd hour people the cab fare to take
them to the nearest transportation service which might be a bus, or a
shuttle already provided free.

The residents along the Caltrain Corridor are in need of relief from the
vibrating, idling, diesel-belching, wheel-squealing, horn blasting stops
and starts and congestion of these monster trains. Electrification is
coming eventually. This now is a public health problem.

Developers should be advised that transit villages are intended for
light rail or within one-half mile of public transportation service
(this includes buses).

This Resolution may just tip the scales to ending the reliance on the
trains for every Tom, Dick, Harry, Kelly, Pia Jim and bicyclist. It
might just shut down Caltrain. We should be focusing on connectivity to
certain transit hubs and that does not mean just heavy rail train
stations a short distance apart. This is congesting, polluting,
uneconomical, wasteful and not intelligent. Safety measures by all
means but closures of stations and crossings with separation of tracks
are necessary.

Finally, Imagine a dark, wet, night with passengers arriving at an
isolated station without any means, but their feet, of getting to their
destination. They will always need their cars with parking facilities
or other means of service to their homes or jobs - not just for safety
but for time-saving.

Lets get our minds off ball games and on to solving the transportation
problems, air and noise pollution and traffic enforcement.

Margaret Petitjean, Menlo Park
Received on Tue Apr 3 12:18:45 2007