High Speed Rail and Transportation

By Terry Nagel

The current plan for high speed rail is wrong. It would build the equivalent of a four-lane freeway through our charming city. I want to emphasize that I would never support a high speed rail proposal that would divide Burlingame or result in unacceptable congestion.

All indications are that the ambitious plans of the California High Speed Rail Authority will not prevail, due to reduced federal funding and our state's anemic economy. Without government funding, private funders will not have confidence in the plan. That means that high speed rail is not likely to be a reality on the Peninsula for many years.

As a member of the county's Transportation Authority, I believe we must begin planning now for transportation improvements that will serve our needs in the future. Our current county transit system will continue to be insufficient for our needs until we can agree on the improvements we want.

Congresswomen Jackie Speier and Anna Eshoo told local elected officials that the U.S. Department of Transportation is unlikely to fund ANY transportation improvements on the Peninsula until we "get our act together" + that is, until our cities agree on the transportation systems we want going forward. They told us that there are plenty of regions in the U.S. that know what they want, so why on earth would the U.S. DOT funnel funds to an area like ours that can't reach consensus?

Cities on the Peninsula agree that ensuring the survival of Caltrain is far more critical than funding high speed rail. Our commuter railroad is seriously underfunded and depends on patched-together "rescue plans" every year. Can some of the federal funding already allocated for high speed rail pay for Caltrain improvements? That is a tantalizing prospect for those of us who are trying to save Caltrain.

We are waiting to hear whether the state Attorney General will permit the federal funding to be used in this manner. If high speed rail funding cannot be channeled into Caltrain and local improvements, we will be back to square one, trying to rescue our underfunded train system and other transportation systems without any dedicated funding. The only other option appears to be asking voters to approve an additional tax for transportation + a difficult "ask" in the current economic climate.

The many discussions about high speed rail and Caltrain's funding problems have consumed countless hours and distracted us from the long-range planning we should be doing. Instead of reacting to crises in transportation, I believe we should work with other cities to determine how we want our countywide transportation system to evolve over time and agree on the plan we want, not one that others try to foist upon us. When the economy improves, we can begin to carry out that plan.