@Jamie: The Caltrain ROW is (basically) 4 tracks wide. With Pacheco alignment, all 4 tracks are required for Caltrain+HSR+Baby Bullet; whereas Altamont only requires 3 tracks. Thus, the Authority would have to figure out some way to accommodate both freight and high-speed trains on the same track.

Under FRA rules, combining freight and high-speed passenger trains incurs gigantic operational and capital costs. It is not at all clear how this is going to done. Most likely outcome is severe degradation in the quality of passenger service in order to accommodate a relatively tiny number of freight trains.

For a detailed review of freight on the peninsula check out the following two links:

http://caltrain-hsr.blogspot.com/2009/03/freight-on-peninsula.html
http://caltrain-hsr.blogspot.com/2009/08/effect-of-heavy-freight.html

In summary, yes the port wants the tunnels to be made larger and the wires to be higher. There is very little advantage to that as there are only 3 trains a day, with very little demand for more. It would add $100s of millions to the project, a complete waste in my opinion.

@bikerider

Diridon station is going to be built at Santa Clara County & San Jose Cities expense, the stations are the responsibility of the community surrounding if they want more than the bare bones, just like SF is paying for Transbay Terminal. It’s outside the scope of HSR.

As far as what I would cancel I would cancel all highway and airport expansion projects. Are you aware that the HSR bill includes almost $1 billion for feeder services to HSR? That’s outside of the regular funding stream for transit, so HSR is actually creating more funds for transit, not taking away.

@joseph

There’s no law that says the project level EIR can’t be done concurrently with program level, meaning they can use all the added detail of the project level to fill in the gaps in the program level. No added time, no added cost.

If you actually read the court ruling you would know that it validated the studies that resulted in choosing Pacheco. for more detail see:

http://caltrain-hsr.blogspot.com/2009/08/atherton-et-al-lawsuit-decided.html
http://cahsr.blogspot.com/2009/08/initial-ruling-in-atherton-v-chsra.html
(The first link is a more neutral view, although the author is an HSR supporter, the second link has an embedded copy of the ruling)

The court has not yet made it’s ruling as to exactly what steps will need to be taken by CHSRA, but from the latest documents it looks like it won’t be too serious.

There is sentiment in Washington for large increases of spending on high-speed rail and on other transit. No need to cancel other transit projects to pay for high-speed rail. We can have enough funding for both, if environmentalists move beyond our usual stance of opposition and realize that this is a time when we can have huge positive accomplishments by transforming energy infrastructure and transforming transporation infrastructure.

Tell me, Glen, what other worthwhile transit projects would you cancel in order to pay for Diridon’s monument to himself?

For sure a new EIR will have to be prepared since the SJ to Gilroy route will have to be restudied. This will take at least 1 year During this time, all work on the project level EIR for the Bay Area must stop, since any work done there would have been prejudiced by not having the under lying program level EIR finished and certified.

All this points to the poor planning that has been done thus far, and has led some real High Speed Rail experts to conclude this project ranks number one as being the worst designed project of its kind ever.

This is what you get when you have politicians, rather than knowledgeable professionals designing a system.

Still waiting for final word from the judge on what steps will be required of CHSRA, but I’m very hopeful that there will be minimal impact on the progress of the HSR project.