From: Martin Engel <martinengel_at_(domain_name_was_removed)>
Date: Wed Mar 05 2008 - 09:58:50 PST

Honorable Mayor and members of the Menlo Park city council:

The text, below, was sent to the CALPIRG web site. CALPIRG has been an aggressive promoter of the CA high speed train. They have been seeking endorsements for this position.

<http://www.calpirg.org/action/world-class-public-transit/assembly>

If you feel as I do, you may wish to write your own statement, by changing the existing text, to CALPIRG to let them know that, regarding the high speed train, they have, to say the least, been negligent.

Respectfully,
Martin

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I regret to say that I find no spelling out of the acronym CALPIRG on your web site. I'll take a guess: California Public Interest Research Group. Is that correct?

The basic mission statement on your banner appears to be "Standing Up to Powerful Interests."

The California High Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) is, in fact, a very "powerful interest." Yet, you have failed to conduct a rigorous analysis -- let's call it research -- of their claims and promises. You state that "the high speed line would cut the number of cars on the road by millions." What, besides the CHSR press-releases, is that statement based on? Whose cars are these, that would no longer be on the road? Those that drive between San Francisco and Los Angeles? Millions? Where do these numbers come from?

CHSRA claims 117,000,000 riders per year. By doing the arithmetic, that works out to one full train every two minutes for each and every ten-hour day.

CHSRA claims a total cost of $40 billion for this project. However similar mega-infrastructure projects like the Boston Big Dig, or the Chunnel/Euro-train have attained large multiples of their original cost claims. It is not unreasonable to project the final costs of this enterprise to be in the neighborhood of $100 billion, perhaps more.

CHSRA claims to become profitable and to generate revenues approaching $4 billion annually. Again, based on what? No passenger train has ever been profitable in the history of the US. Why this one?

My point here is that you have, so far, failed in your self-appropriated duty to research and contest what could be the many exaggerated claims of one of the most costly infrastructure projects ever promoted by a very "powerful interest."

It should be of no comfort to you that you are not alone in this shortcoming. It is puzzling that the media, usually so ready to challenge the claims of most promoters, have been so negligent in this particular case. However, it is their job to "sell" newspapers. What's your job?

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I am proud to say that our local newspaper, The Almanac has today courageously confronted the high speed train head-on, challenging many of it's claims, promises and projections. Congratulations, The Almanac.

Here's another point. One may assume that the Menlo Park Chamber of Commerce represents the business interests of our city, and these would include downtown retail businesses among others. Nonetheless, the official position of the Chamber regarding grade separations and the high speed train is one of endorsement, even though the construction of these Caltrain corridor expansions promise to be enormously destructive for the downtown region and the businesses there. I find that puzzling also.

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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 Wed Mar 5 10:00:02 2008