Though a recent state audit questioned the High-Speed Rail Authority’s ability to secure necessary funding, if everything goes as planned by 2026 bullet trains will travel at 220 miles per hour over roughly 800 miles of track stretching from San Francisco to Los Angeles. A few years after that, high speed rail will extend from Sacramento to San Diego. When it’s completed, California’s high speed rail will be the longest such transit system in the nation.  Policy makers have demanded that the system provide transportation at a cost that’s competitive with airplanes and automobiles, though preliminary estimates of likely fare levels have recently jumped in price.

California’s line is scheduled to be the first of a handful of high speed rail projects – in Texas, the Midwest, New York and Florida – to become operational.  Peninsula Rail – a segment connecting San Francisco Transbay Transit Center and San Jose Diridon Station – should be operational by 2020.

Constructing a state-of-the-art bullet train line through densely populated areas requires lots of money and considerable planning. The $8 billion, 48-mile Peninsula Rail will share the Caltrain corridor but run on its own tracks. However, obstructions are appearing.  Caltrain has halted long-planned electrification of their line, which would reduce noise and polluting air emissions, due to the threat of a lawsuit from the Planning and Conservation League and the Community Coalition on High-Speed Rail.  Both groups are calling the electrification project’s environmental impact report, which was published in 2004, dated, and assert that electrification should be considered as part of high speed rail development.  Because high speed rail will be electric, the entire corridor must be upgraded for it to run.

Owned and operated by the Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board, Caltrain provides rail service over 77-miles between San Francisco and San Jose.  The commuter train is in line to receive millions of dollars in federal funding for electrification as part of the high speed rail project.  But Caltrain has lost $10 million due to state funding cuts over the past three years, and has suffered from a declining ridership because of the poor economy.

Although Caltrain received a $10.3 million windfall in late April through state legislation that uses a gas tax swap formula to provide millions of dollars for California public transit agencies, these funds won’t be enough to reinstate service that’s been cut, or prevent additional fare increases and service reductions.  

According to Caltrain spokeswoman Tasha Bartholomew, the board is considering halving its service. “Caltrain never had a dedicated funding source,” Bartholomew said. “We’ve been running on a deficit for quite some time, and now everything is coming to a head.”

According to Jeff Barker, deputy director of the California High Speed Rail Authority – a state-chartered body overseeing project planning, financing and construction  – Caltrain’s fate won’t divert high speed rail from its course.  However, high speed rail is facing legal problems of its own along the peninsula and in San Francisco. 

“I think we have an opportunity with this major infrastructure project over the next ten years that the City should take advantage of,” said Tony Kelly, who stepped down as Potrero Boosters Neighborhood Association president last month to focus on his campaign for District 10 supervisor.  “San Francisco doesn’t have a plan to handle high speed rail.”  Kelly suggested that the City form a task force to examine high speed rail options. He recounted how it took five years to install a stoplight at 7th and 16th streets even after it was approved.  “It’s complicated land because of Muni and Caltrain,” he said.

The train crossing at 7th and 16th streets will need to be altered to minimize adverse impacts to pedestrian and automobile traffic, and to make sure the trains have the smoothest and quickest route. 

New tracks in the Caltrain corridor can be installed in one of three ways: elevated a story up, at street level, or underground.   The Mission Bay Citizens Advisory Committee (CAC), whose members are appointed by the mayor, has expressed a preference for a modified option. “We strongly support having both [high-speed rail] and Caltrain below grade before they reach these intersections,” the group wrote in a 2009 letter to the California High Speed Rail Authority.  A below grade approach, they contend – which would consist of an open trench – is preferable for traffic flow, and would be congruent with the undergrounding of the line at Mariposa Street as it reaches the Transbay Terminal.  “Taking the rail lines below the surface south of Mariposa Street would also provide an opportunity to open up the existing surface rail alignment north of Mariposa Street for more productive uses,” asserted the CAC.

Based on input from the various affected communities, the California High Speed Rail Authority released its preliminary alternatives analysis in April for the San Francisco-San Jose and Merced-Fresno lines.  For the San Francisco to San Jose portion, the study validates the idea of having a “four-track, grade separated, shared Caltrain and high-speed train system,” but left open the possibility of a “recommended alternative on the Peninsula.” No design option was eliminated in the alternative analysis; not even the expensive or controversial ones.

According to a report issued by state auditor Elaine Howe, the High-Speed Rail Authority suffers from lax oversight, poor management, and insufficient planning.  “The program risks significant delays without more well-developed plans for obtaining funds,” Howe wrote in a letter to the governor and legislature.  

The California High Speed Rail program has secured roughly $11.6 billion in funding.  The Obama Administration provided the state with $2.25 billion in federal stimulus monies for building its high speed rail system.

In 2008, Proposition 1A passed, authorizing the sale of bonds to help pay for the high speed train system which was originally estimated to cost $33.6 billion, later increased to $43 billion because of inflation.  High speed rail’s price tag will likely go up because of the desire many communities have for the rail to be underground.

Alex Mullaney contributed to this report.  Preliminary alternative analysis can be found at http://www.cahighspeedrail.ca.gov/images/chsr/20100408092523_SF-SJ%20Preliminary%20Alternatives%20Analysis%20Report.pdf.