Dear Council,

I went to the DRC meeting in April - very informative. Most of the
members seem to have already made up their minds that Dumbarton is an
extension of CalTrain and that local input is just a formality.
There was no serious discussion of alternatives presented by staff.

If we are a Green City, we are the ones to speak up in the face of
this immense bureaucratic momentum to grow the Caltrain diesel
monolith to the exclusion of established, greener alternatives like
light rail. Light rail also has significantly less impact on
neighborhoods it goes through. At least two DRC members (including
the chairman) want to begin the heavy rail project with the partial
funds at hand. This would effectively end any consideration of light
rail and put the counties and state in the position of scraping up
the other $300 million plus. This is an inexcusable manipulation of
public funds at a very large scale.

The impacts to the environment and to Menlo Park are simply being
ignored. We have residents right on the right of way who are
actually IN FAVOR of public transit use, but are asking that it be
the best system it can be, not the most convenient for the current
(Caltrain) bureaucracy. Please lend the voice of Menlo Park to
insist that light rail be engineered and priced in the same detail as
the heavy rail, and particularly that preference be given to a more
modern, lower impact infrastructure, equipment and operations system.

Thank you,

Henry L. Riggs
Callie Lane
Received on Mon May 21 12:31:41 2007