From: Martin Engel <martinengel_at_(domain_name_was_removed)>
Date: Fri Nov 30 2007 - 09:17:34 PST

Apparently, slowly but surely, people are about to take more notice of what might happen unless we take a very strong position opposing it. Most of us still don't know or care about the magnitude of the disaster awaiting the Peninsula. We have come to accept the Caltrain corridor, and its trains, for many years. As near-by residents, we become pretty much unaware of the rush of the trains, unless some engineer really leans on the horn button. Let's just say it's tolerable, up to a point. However, what is proposed as part of the corridor expansion will overwhelm Menlo Park beyond imagining. The very last thing in the world you will want to read someday in one of these emails is: "I told you so!"

Martin

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Rail changes due
John Horgan
Article Last Updated: 11/29/2007 07:14:06 AM PST

HIGH-speed electrified rail. The subject hasn't generated much interest from the general public in San Mateo County.

However, as plans proceed to institute such a system along what is now the Caltrain line, significant changes would be forthcoming.

For one thing, as proposed, the new setup would require overhead electrical lines through the entire length of the Peninsula. Those wires would have a visual impact on the county's many and varied communities.

And then there would be the pressing need for extensive, new grade separations. Those structures would be mandatory at most, if not all, road crossings because of the speed of the new trains, anticipated to be well over 100 miles per hour.

All of this would change the ambiance of some local towns. Burlingame, for example, would find itself partially cut in half by an extensive series of grade separations stretching from Peninsula Avenue all the way north to the Burlingame High School/Washington Park/Caltrain depot area.

Such structures would create what would amount to a Great Wall of Burlingame. Menlo Park and Redwood City would find themselves similarly affected.

For comparisons, see rail-line barriers already in place in Belmont and San Carlos.

The electrified system is intended to provide fast rail service from Los Angeles to San Francisco. Funding, though, has not been approved - which has led local policymakers to react with some skepticism about the project's future. So debate about its quality-of-life effects has been minimal in the county's suburbs.

Still, Caltrain officials have anticipated its eventual arrival. According to Caltrain spokesman Jonah Weinberg, all of the many improvements undertaken by the agency have been made with potential high-speed electrical service in mind.

The L.A.-to-S.F. trains would operate on existing Caltrain tracks, he explained. Caltrain itself is planning to become an electrified line by 2014, he added.

Weinberg noted that none of the renovations and upgrades performed at Caltrain stations from South San Francisco toMenlo Park would be compromised by the coming of electrified, high-speed trains. All of the work would fit in seamlessly with what is expected once electrified rail becomes a reality, he said.

You can get in touch with John Horgan by telephone at 650-348-4334, by fax at 650-348-4446 or by traditional snail mail at 477 Ninth Ave., Suite 110, San Mateo, 94402. Check out his blog, Read It and Rant, at http://www.sanmateocountytimes.com.

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


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Received on Fri Nov 30 10:58:28 2007