CalMod 1.1

This being Silicon Valley, future plans for Caltrain modernization are known as CalMod 2.0, the next big thing beyond the CalMod 1.0 improvements that are already under contract.

CalMod 2.0 is a list of future improvements worth about $750M that includes:

• Full fleet conversion to 8-car EMUs ($440M)
• Broadband connectivity ($30M)
• Maintenance facility improvements ($36M)
• Level boarding and platform extensions ($250M)

In the grand scheme of things, these aren't outrageous expenses ("only" another 38% over and above the $2B tab for CalMod 1.0), but they're not cheap, either. To meet capacity challenges in the short term, possibly concurrently with delivery of CalMod 1.0, perhaps some of these expenses can be moved up to realize the maximum bang for the buck as soon as 2021.

CalMod 1.1 would consist of just two line items:

1) Lengthen EMUs to 8 cars, for $145M

The EMU fleet for CalMod 1.0 consists of sixteen 6-car trains, with a reduced seating capacity of 558 that has caused much yammering amid the increasing load factors during peak commute hours. Even without a ridership bump from the "new and modern" effect, it is likely these trains will be packed from day one. Now is the time to start doing something about it.

Seating layout for two extra cars (based on Stadler brochure)
Two unpowered cars would seat up to 264 passengers.

The contract with Stadler includes an option for another 96 cars priced at $390M, a figure larded up to $440M in the CalMod 2.0 total presumably due to the usual procurement overheads. This figure is for 100% fleet replacement, with all the remaining diesel consists being retired. In the short term, only 1/3rd of the option cars would need to be exercised; this involves purchasing 32 cars or 2 extra cars for each of the sixteen EMU consists in the CalMod 1.0 order.

The per-train capacity will increase by well over 200 seats per train, back to a level that will mitigate peak hour crowding. However, 8-car EMUs will exceed the length of many of the existing platforms.

2) Extend platforms to a minimum length of 700 feet, for $25M

Platform extensions are relatively cheap to build, especially when you don't need to rebuild the entire length of station platforms as would be needed for level boarding. You can leave vertical circulation (stairs, ramps) and amenities (vending machines, lighting, benches, PA system, departure boards, etc.) alone and just tack on a short length of concrete, and perhaps move a pedestrian crossing. Caltrain excels at building platforms and has done so extensively, pouring some 5 linear miles of platforms over the last 18 years!

The length of Caltrain's existing platforms is documented in this schematic of California rail systems. To dock an 8-car EMU, platforms need to be extended to at least 700 feet. The necessary extension lengths are graphed at right; labels show the year of completion of each platform's construction.

The total amount of platform extension required to operate 8-car EMUs is approximately 3500 feet. This figure excludes Hillsdale and South San Francisco, both of which are already slated to be rebuilt to 700 feet. Each foot of platform costs about $7000 to build, on the basis of a typical $10M cost for two 700-foot platforms from past platform reconstruction projects. Therefore, the tab for extending all platforms to 700 feet (for the time being, at their current height of 8 inches) lies in the range of $25M.

Start Planning Now

The bottom line: another $175M or an extra 9% investment over CalMod 1.0 yields an extra 23% peak hour seated capacity for CalMod 1.1. It would be best to start planning for CalMod 1.1 now, and to turn CalMod 2.0 into the big level boarding project for the 2020s. In software parlance, the CalMod 1.1 patch should be applied immediately upon release of CalMod 1.0.

Future Proofing Hillsdale

The next big grade separation project on the peninsula rail corridor will be at 25th Ave in San Mateo, a logical next step in the decades-long process to grade separate the corridor.  This grade separation will establish a 6.5-mile stretch of 100% grade separated right of way, laying the groundwork for a future four-track mid-line overtake facility that will allow express trains to overtake slower commuter trains under the "blended system" jointly planned by Caltrain and the HSR authority.

Preliminary rendering of new
Hillsdale station with island platform

The latest plans presented to the Caltrain board of directors show a split-grade elevated solution, built sufficiently wide for four tracks but initially only fitted with two tracks spaced on approximately 48-foot centers.  The Hillsdale station is moved north by a quarter mile to straddle 28th Ave, and fitted with a central island platform sized approximately 36 x 700 feet and built 8 inches above the rails.

Vertical circulation to this island platform is provided at the north end (two stairways connecting to the sidewalks on each side of the new 28th Ave underpass) and the south end of the station (a new pedestrian tunnel with one stairway and one wheelchair ramp).  In cross section, the new Hillsdale might look like this:

Of course, the accelerated schedule for its completion is closely linked to electrification, so quite soon thereafter it might look like this, with mixed diesel and EMU service.  Note that per Caltrain plans, the overhead contact system is 22 feet above the rails. plenty to clear even the tallest freight cars.

It's not too difficult to guess what happens when the blended system overtake tracks are built: the new platform and all associated vertical circulation (stairs and ramp) will be demolished, to be replaced by a pair of new express tracks right down the middle of the corridor.  A first phase of this "New New Hillsdale" station would like this, hopefully with level boarding platforms.  Note the new portal configuration of the overhead electrification, to span across four tracks and two platforms without placing poles close to the edge of the new platforms:

After demolition of the "New Hillsdale" island platform, the original 48-foot track centers allow for two additional overtake tracks and a central fence (track spacing 15 + 18 + 15 feet) to prevent passengers from crossing between the two new side platforms of the "New New Hillsdale."  Including stairs, the "New New" station is 106 feet wide and looks as much as possible like any station on Amtrak's Northeast Corridor.  It could almost be mistaken for Princeton Junction:

While it's a fine idea to build the new grade separation sufficiently wide for four tracks, demolishing the "New Hillsdale" station only to replace it so soon with a "New New Hillsdale" seems terribly wasteful. Perhaps this is another case of "why build it right when you can build it twice?" Surely there is a better way.

Rebuilding Hillsdale Once and for All

There's a much better way to build the New Hillsdale once and for all.  It initially looks like this:

Note the central island platform is a full-height level boarding platform, disguised for now as an 8-inch platform by raising the track bed by 51 - 8 = 43 inches using a thicker-than-usual layer of ballast. The final footprint of this station, which will ultimately have the HSR overtake tracks on the outside, is less than 100 feet wide at the platform. The footprint will never change; all the concrete has been poured and not another cubic yard is needed in the future. Soon after electrification, mixed EMU and diesel service would look like this:

The overhead contact system is built in its final configuration 22 feet above the eventual height of the tracks; because the tracks are raised by 43 inches, the vertical clearance is temporarily reduced to 18' 5" which still safely accommodates Plate F freight cars, the tallest that have historically been used in this part of the corridor.  Therefore, there is no constraint to freight service.  This electrification will never change, with all the portals in their final configuration.

When all the diesels are gone and it's time to transition to level boarding, a track maintenance project takes place over a weekend.  43 inches of ballast are removed from under the tracks, using standard track maintenance machines.  The rails are never even disconnected.  (Not to be too flippant, this is still a major track maintenance operation that would require sophisticated planning and modern high-capacity machinery; but it is certainly within the realm of what Caltrain has done before.) Minor lateral adjustments are made to track and overhead contact system alignment, yielding this for the Monday morning rush:

Not a single cubic yard of concrete is required either to convert to level boarding, or to add the overtake tracks once HSR service begins on the peninsula.  The final blended system configuration is ultimately this:

Built once, and built right!

That FSSF Thing

Placing the express overtake tracks on the outside, in a fast-slow-slow-fast or FSSF configuration, as opposed to the traditional slow-fast-fast-slow or SFFS configuration inspired by road design, is a key architectural decision for the blended system.  The forces of traditionalism will argue strongly for SFFS because that's how it's "always" done, yielding nice straight express tracks down the middle of the corridor-- but clear exceptions to this "rule" exist, with examples of FSSF corridors in these videos from Sweden (with 125 mph express trains!) and Australia.

The fatal operational flaw of traditional SFFS corridors is that when a track must be taken out of service, either accidentally or intentionally for maintenance, commuter trains either must cut across the express tracks (fouling express traffic) to reach the opposite platform, or use super awkward bridge plates to board from the fouled express track.  In contrast, an FSSF island platform is operationally flexible: the train simply crosses over to the opposite side of the island, without ever getting in the way of express traffic.  For the peninsula "blended system" where Caltrain and HSR share the corridor, the operational headaches of SFFS could prove unworkable in the long run as the rail corridor is maintained.

One argument systematically trotted out against FSSF is this: wowing express trains around the outside of every island platform will make for a slalom "barf ride" that will give HSR passengers motion sickness, if not downright whiplash.  This argument intuitively rings true, but turns out to be patently false when you run the numbers.  In reality, an express train blasting around the Hillsdale island platform at 125 mph will do so on curves with a radius greater than four miles, requiring just 2 inches of superelevation to be rendered imperceptible to passengers.

Download FSSF island platform plans
for every station on the Caltrain corridor
(3.3 MB PDF, see page 9 for Hillsdale)

Another argument leveled against FSSF is that the island platform arrangement requires additional right of way compared to a traditional SFFS outside platform arrangement.  The footprint of a FSSF station can be made nearly as compact as a SFFS station, especially if the central island platform (shown in the above diagrams at 33 feet wide) is slightly tapered at its ends, yielding an imperceptibly curved platform that is for all practical engineering purposes the same thing as a tangent (straight) platform. In any case, the available right of way at the Hillsdale location is a generous 150 feet wide, making such footprint considerations moot.

The Takeaways

• DON'T rebuilt infrastructure multiple times.
• DO build it once and build it right, in its final configuration
• DON'T build station platforms that are not compatible with level boarding, where this can be avoided.
• DO create the Caltrain engineering standards for level boarding.
• DO build the new Hillsdale station with a level boarding platform, years before the transition to level boarding occurs, by temporarily raising the track bed to make the platform only 8" tall.
• DO build the new Hillsdale station as an island platform, even after high-speed overtake tracks are added
• DO put the high speed tracks on the outside, in the FSSF configuration, for operational flexibility.

Peninsula HSR, Take Two

Environmental clearance of high-speed rail in the peninsula rail corridor was initiated right after the Proposition 1A bond passed in 2008.  The development of engineering and environmental documentation for a four-track alignment connecting San Francisco to San Jose was in full swing during the years 2009 and 2010.  The Peninsula Rail Program, as it became known, was an ambitious yet awkward collaboration between the CHSRA and Caltrain, with the engineering consulting firm HNTB doing most of the heavy lifting.  The decision to concentrate HSR resources in the Central Valley, combined with fierce community opposition on the peninsula, brought the process nearly to a halt in early 2011.  By that time, thousands of pages of documents had been drafted, hundreds of stakeholder meetings held, and $45 million spent for preliminary engineering and environmental clearance.

Then came a long pause during which two major developments took place.  First, as a result of a political compromise, the idea of a four-track high-speed railroad was dropped in favor of a "blended system" where Caltrain and HSR would share the peninsula corridor primarily on two tracks, with less impact to surrounding communities.  Second, the Caltrain electrification project came closer to being realized, passing key milestones of environmental clearance, funding, and procurement.  Throughout this pause, plans for peninsula HSR became somewhat nebulous, both in their scope and timing.  The media spotlight turned away.

Fast forward to the August 2015 meeting of the California High-Speed Rail Authority (YouTube video).  As reported by the Fresno Bee (and without a peep from the Bay Area press) we have the first hints of what lies ahead, in the form of a Request For Qualifications issued by the CHSRA to re-start the environmental clearance process for the peninsula.  This RFQ lays out a new timeline and a $36 million budget allocated over a term of three years, shared between two sections: San Francisco to San Jose, and San Jose across Pacheco Pass to the Central Valley wye.  The following schedule milestones are envisioned:

• Consultant contract award - November 2015
• Project scoping - March 2016
• Preliminary design for project definition - May 2016
• Technical reports - June 2016
• Administrative draft EIR/EIS - August 2016
• Draft EIR/EIS release - November 2016
• Preliminary design of preferred alternative - April 2017
• Final EIR/EIS certification - November/December 2017

The timeline for actual construction is not specified, but it rarely begins immediately after EIR certification, since final design and the inevitable CEQA lawsuits take time.

Highlights from the RFQ

The RFQ deliberately does not reveal the scope or exact nature of the alternatives to be studied, but it does contain some interesting nuggets:

1. Work for restarting the peninsula HSR process has already started, as noted on PDF page 24: "Work on some of the tasks listed in Exhibit A of Attachment C has commenced and is currently being performed by Authority and Rail Delivery Partner staff."  What the blended system will look like is already being hammered out.
    
2. The RFQ emphasizes that the proposed EIR is separate from Caltrain's electrification EIR, on PDF page 28: "On January 8, 2015, the JPB certified the PCEP Final EIR and is currently in the process of procuring a design/build contract to implement the project. While the PCEP will not include all infrastructure necessary to implement HSR service in the SF-CVY Corridor (such as HSR maintenance facilities, station platform improvements, track straightening, or passing tracks), the electrification infrastructure (such as overhead wire systems), along with additional infrastructure improvements, will accommodate future coordinated service and will not preclude HSR."  This point is the subject of a CEQA lawsuit against Caltrain, claiming that electrification is an inseparable component of the HSR project.
    
3. Phased implementation is described on PDF page 57: "The Consultant shall develop an incremental plan as directed by the Authority to construct the project over a phased implementation schedule, dependent on funding. The Consultant shall recommend appropriate construction elements for each increment of implementation. This plan shall identify operable project segments or elements of the HSR infrastructure (such as grade separations) that could be constructed early and bring near-term project benefits to existing freight rail and conventional passenger rail services, as well as other increments of construction to build out the full set of improvements over a phased implementation plan."  The peninsula corridor is uniquely suited to a number of construction packages to be built independently from each other.
    
4. San Jose is no longer an artificial boundary between two project sections.  This has been a weakness in the past, with insufficient coordination to optimize the configuration of the station and its approaches because each end was being handled by a different consultant.  With the same consultant handling both ends of San Jose, sanity may finally prevail with a shared at-grade solution.
    
5. Level boarding planned for Caltrain, on PDF page 60: "Platform design for level boarding at all Caltrain stations will be required."  Even if not at the same height as selected for HSR, level boarding is a prerequisite for the blended system, to improve the average speed and punctuality of Caltrain.
    
6. A temporary San Francisco terminal is planned at 4th and King.  The mere idea of it illustrates the frosty relationship between the CHSRA and San Francisco's TJPA, but also helps to satisfy the requirement for a 30-minute trip from San Francisco to San Jose, a threshold of great legal significance that is embedded in the Proposition 1A bond act.  Starting from 4th and King, rather than from the Transbay Transit Center, running at no more than 110 mph, and counting only pure run time (with no timetable margin), the 30-minute run becomes feasible.

EIR Cost Magnitudes

Environmental Impact Reports are extremely complex and voluminous documents designed to clear a project under the California Environmental Quality Act, ensuring that impacts are properly disclosed and mitigated.  It takes a large team of engineers, environmental specialists, writers and lawyers to concurrently design a project and pull together an EIR that can pass legal muster without incurring years of litigation.  To understand exactly where the process currently stands for peninsula HSR, it helps to remember that the published record for the San Francisco to San Jose project section forms only the tip of the iceberg.  The vast majority of the material assembled by HNTB in 2009 and 2010 remains unpublished, to be continued by this new contract.

How much EIR preparation did the $45 million spent so far buy?  We can establish an extremely crude metric for the cost of one EIR page by taking the ratio of the cumulative cost incurred for the preliminary design and environmental clearance of a project, as of the time of EIR certification, divided by the total number of pages in the resulting EIR.  Here are some examples:

Project	Certification	Cost Incurred	Page Count	Cost Per EIR Page
Merced - Fresno HSR	May 2012	$45M	13,000	$3500
Fresno - Bakersfield HSR	May 2014	$120M	20,000	$6000
Caltrain Electrification	Jan 2015	$14M	5,400	$2600
Peninsula HSR SF - SJ	Dec 2017	$65M*	13,000**	$5000***

*cost basis $45M expended to date + $20M of the new $36M contract
**estimated based on cost per page
***estimated based on past history and biased high for scope change from full build to blended

Given that the new consultant won't be starting from scratch, it's conceivable that there will be sufficient budget in the new contract to produce a full EIR for the blended system on the compressed two-year timeline envisioned in the RFQ.

What the Blended System Might Look Like

The CHSRA and Caltrain take great pains to remind everyone that we won't know what the blended system for the 50+ mile peninsula corridor will look like, nor what the blended service plan will be, that is, until the Alternatives Analysis is released next year.  The specific discussions regarding the scope of the blended system are underway behind closed doors.  Taking into account the phased and incremental nature of the project, one can engage in some informed (wishful?) speculation, listed from north to south:

• 4th and King shared station modifications.
• Brisbane HSR maintenance facility.
• Millbrae shared station modifications, hopefully with an affordable shared at-grade solution.
• San Mateo County grade separation Phase II at Linden Ave in San Bruno, Center St in Millbrae, Broadway in Burlingame, and 25th / 28th / 31st in San Mateo.  The latter are likely to happen sooner than the other projects to enable the mid-line overtake.
• Grade separation through highly constrained downtown San Mateo.
• Four-track 110 mph mid-line overtake facility (from San Mateo 9th St, through Belmont and San Carlos, initially to Whipple in Redwood City).
• Redwood City grade separation Phase IV, extending the four-track mid-line overtake through downtown, possibly with a new HSR station replacing the Sequoia Shopping Center, if the city and CHSRA agree to add this to the project scope.
• PAMPA (Palo Alto Menlo Park Atherton) grade separations, likely to happen later than the other projects.
• Santa Clara County grade separation Phase III at Charleston and Meadow in Palo Alto, Rengstorff and Castro in Mountain View, Mary and Sunnyvale Ave in Sunnyvale, creating a continuous 14-mile stretch of grade-separated track good for 110 mph from Palo Alto to San Jose.
• San Jose approach realignment and a shared ground-level station.
• A three-track at-grade alignment through San Jose's Gardiner neighborhood, along the existing right-of-way, avoiding a slow and expensive viaduct above the 87/280 interchange.
• Curve flattening throughout the peninsula, except (unfortunately) in San Bruno
• Level boarding across the entire Caltrain system, a key blending ingredient that ensures commuter trains can clear the shared tracks quickly and reliably in front of high-speed trains.

The next formal step in the process will be a new Notice of Preparation (NOP) to be published by the FRA in the Federal Register, an action that could come in the coming months.  Then we'll party like it's 2009.

Grade Separation: The Decadal View

For the last few years of debate around the issue of high-speed rail, grade separating the peninsula rail corridor was often cast as an all-or-nothing proposition.  This extremist view clouded two important facts: first, the corridor is already mostly grade-separated (in 2013, only 40 road crossings out of 104 between San Francisco and San Jose will remain at grade); and second, grade separation is a slow and inexorable process that takes place over many decades.

If we assume the next several decades will be like the last several decades, we can take an educated guess about how and in what order grade separations will be built.  The criteria for prioritizing each project could be:

• creating long, uninterrupted stretches of grade separated right of way to enable higher train speeds without compromising safety
• creating a four-track mid-line overtake facility to increase the capacity of the corridor, to support initial HSR service
• separating crossings that rank highest in the CPUC's Section 190 Grade Separation Priority List
• delaying the most expensive and politically costly projects until last

Phase I is simply the completion of the San Bruno grade separation in 2013.  The San Mateo / San Bruno grade crossing being replaced was once rated #7 statewide on the CPUC's priority list.

Phase I: San Bruno Grade Separation

Phase II consists of four projects in San Mateo County, opening up two long stretches free of crossings by the early 2020s, including 14.8 miles free of crossings north of Burlingame, and 6.5 miles south of San Mateo.  This enables the future construction of the "short" mid-line overtake envisioned in Caltrain's corridor capacity analysis, and leaves only a few dense clusters of crossings within San Mateo County.  The new grade separations, in order of priority, are:

1. 25th Ave in San Mateo, the only grade crossing that remains between San Mateo and Redwood City.  Along with new grade separations already planned at 28th and 31st, this project enables the future 4-track mid-line overtake.
2. Broadway in Burlingame, an extremely congested crossing that has been slated for grade separation since the 1970s.  It rates #11 statewide on the latest CPUC priority list.
3. Linden Ave in South San Francisco, originally planned as part of the San Bruno project, but dropped from the final design in 2007.  Grade-separation at Linden is accompanied by the closure of Scott St, which becomes a pedestrian tunnel.
4. Center Street in Millbrae, a grade separation that will require a U-shaped elevated ramp due to the nearby BART subway tunnel box.  Such are the consequences of bad planning.

Each of these projects is independent and can be negotiated on a case-by-case basis with the four affected cities.  Starting in San Mateo County allows at least another decade for the Pacheco vs. Altamont debate to run its due course, legally and politically; these four projects are useful either way.

Phase II: San Mateo County Grade Separations

Phase III occurs mostly in Santa Clara County, creating a new stretch free of grade crossings from the southern half of Palo Alto all the way to San Jose in the late 2020s, assuming the routing of HSR over Pacheco survives as currently planned.  The last two grade crossings in San Francisco are also eliminated as part of the downtown extension project.  This phase includes the following six discrete projects:

1. Mary Ave in Sunnyvale, the corridor's busiest grade crossing in this county, with more than 25,000 daily vehicles
2. Sunnyvale Ave
3. Rengstorff in Mountain View, with about 18,000 daily vehicles
4. Castro in Mountain View, with about 9,000 daily vehicles
5. Charleston and East Meadow in Palo Alto, with a combined ~30,000 daily vehicles plus numerous pedestrians and bicyclists
6. 16th and Common in San Francisco, as part of the DTX project

Together, these six projects create a new 16-mile stretch of track that is entirely free of grade crossings.  The corridor is now left with just three dense clusters of grade crossings, in San Mateo / Burlingame, Redwood City, and PAMPA (Palo Alto - Menlo Park - Atherton), highlighted in orange in the figure below.  Note that these three dense clusters contain 27 crossings, and that to get this far, only 12 existing crossings were newly separated.

Phase III: Santa Clara County Grade Separations

Phase IV is the Great Redwood City Grade Separation.  This project, potentially for the early 2030s, would prolong the four-track mid-line overtake by three miles, by removing six grade crossings in downtown Redwood City.  Removing this cluster first makes sense from the standpoint of increased corridor capacity, the lowest number of new structures, the short mileage, and the entire project being politically simplified by virtue of its containment within Redwood City limits.

Phase V is the Great San Mateo / Burlingame Grade Separation.   This is a tougher project because it involves some of the most highly constricted portions of the corridor.  It also involves political and technical coordination between two neighboring cities, adding an additional challenge.  The sheer quantity of crossings (13 grade crossings + 4 obsolete grade separations within 2.4 miles) is also a complicating factor.

Phase VI is the Great PAMPA Grade Separation.  This project is left for last because it lies in the most expensive real estate on the corridor, involves coordination between three different cities, and is liable to cause the fiercest political and legal backlash anywhere on the peninsula.  Delaying it until last, perhaps into the late 2030s, allows the customarily long planning process to run its course without undue haste in all three affected communities.

We didn't arrive at today's state of grade separation (more than half) overnight.  It resulted from a slow and steady process that began in earnest in the 1940s.  The future is likely to be similar, and the peninsula rail corridor can reach a far improved state by separating just 12 more crossings over the next couple of decades, as described in Phases II and III.  This dozen should be prioritized for construction, before any of the crossings in the remaining dense clusters are touched.

Now What?

In an historic vote, the legislature today approved a funding package worth about $8 billion to begin construction of the first high-speed rail system in the Americas.  To make the package politically more palatable around the state, it included the immediate release of $706 million of so-called "book end" funding in the form of Proposition 1A bonds specifically allocated to the modernization of Caltrain, per the recent Memorandum of Understanding approved by all involved agencies.  The $706M total includes $600M of high-speed rail funding and $106M of non-HSR connectivity funding, from pots of money that are subject to different constraints.  These sums form the lion's share of a $1.456 billion funding package that covers both electrification and a new signal system for the peninsula rail corridor.

While this is no doubt a landmark occasion to celebrate for supporters of modern rail transportation, today's vote will probably not cause anything dramatic to happen on the peninsula in the short term.  Consider:

Taxpayer Lawsuits.  The opposition remains fervent and relentless, and a lawsuit challenging the release of $600M of HSR bonds to improve the Caltrain commuter rail system, with not a high-speed train in sight for more than a decade, is a near certainty.  Protections are built into the law, and require several conditions to be met for release of the funds.  Approval by the legislature is only one of those conditions, and the interpretation of the remaining ones is likely to become legally contentious.

The Environmental Clearance Process.  In April of 2010, Caltrain's electrification project had already obtained federal environmental clearance under the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) as the Caltrain board of directors came within a few dramatic minutes of certifying the Final EIR under California's Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA.  The board stopped short, under a surprise threat of a CEQA lawsuit, preferring to resolve any issues outside of the legal system before certifying the FEIR.  While the scope of the electrification project has not changed under the recently approved MOU, the project has now become the first in a series of incremental investments leading up to the "blended system" envisioned in the latest HSR business plan.  That means the electrification EIR may go back to square one for yet another round of public circulation (following prior rounds in 2004 and 2009), a process that is likely to take several years.  It would be surprising to see a new FEIR before 2014.

CEQA Lawsuits.  The sole enforcement mechanism built into CEQA is the lawsuit; it is therefore expected that lawsuits could follow the certification of any EIR.  While clearing electrification as a stand-alone project might be legal under CEQA, the issue is complicated by the project's new association to high-speed rail.  The two-tiered environmental clearance process adopted by the HSR project has already run into serious resistance, with the Bay Area to Central Valley Program EIR about to enter its third round of litigation since 2008.  HSR opponents could easily argue that funding the electrification project under Proposition 1A requires the prior clearance of both this program EIR as well as the project-level EIR for the "blended" San Francisco - San Jose section of the HSR project, including all the project phases expected to be completed after electrification.  Those later phases would include more controversial measures such as the construction of new overtake tracks and new grade separations.  This document is yet to be drafted; while the peninsula project EIR for the full-bore four-track system (still allowed for in the program EIR) was almost ready to circulate as of late 2011, it will require extensive revisions before it conforms to the "blended" configuration.  And that's before it becomes mired in what could become years of CEQA litigation.

The Lead Agency Issue.  The high-speed rail authority has in the past been openly hostile to funding Caltrain improvements.  The new leadership, under board chair Dan Richard, may not be much different.  Richard, like Kopp before him, is a longtime supporter of the expansion of BART, which has always been in invisible tension with Caltrain enhancements.  While he has extolled the merits of the blended book-end approach to gain political support for the entire HSR endeavor, this stance could very well weaken now that the legislative hurdle is passed.  Prior to the vote, he was quoted as saying "The Legislature wanted to emphasize that this money would be there for (the Bay Area and Southern California). And they’re right," highlighting that it is the legislature pushing this funding, not the CHSRA.  Indeed, the Authority, and the transit industrial complex behind it, may be reluctant to push for the peninsula improvements (a) because the opposition there is intense, (b) because of inter-agency rivalry with Caltrain, and (c) because the proposed projects do not involve large-scale civil works of the sort that Parsons Brinckerhoff likes to design, and its acolytes in the construction industry like to build.  Progress on the electrification project could thus depend on which agency leads the EIR process and pushes the project to fruition.  Caltrain is both competent and motivated, but the CHSRA could easily drag its feet--after all, the legislature has only authorized the bond funds to be spent, but the CHSRA retains full authority over when to actually spend them.  All the MOU demands of them is "good faith," which has been in demonstrably short supply.

CBOSS.  While the spotlight is on the electrification project, the MOU and newly passed HSR funding also covers Caltrain's new Advanced Signal System, also known as the Communications Based Overlay Signal System or CBOSS, and often criticized on this blog.  This project is a necessary pre-condition for the operation of light-weight European-style trains, and must be completed by the end of 2015 under a federal mandate that shows signs of being delayed to 2018 or 2020.  Despite Caltrain's repeated insistence to the contrary, CBOSS will not be compatible with HSR other than by fitting two separate, expensive, and functionally redundant signaling systems on high-speed trains, an unavoidable and inconvenient truth that may call into question the wisdom of spending even one cent of HSR money on CBOSS.  A far better outcome would be to make the peninsula rail corridor a testbed for the actual train control system to be deployed on the HSR system, based on the increasingly mature worldwide ERTMS rail signaling standard.

The Timeline.  The money is available only until June 30th, 2018.

UPDATE: The Poison Pill.  At any time before then, a single stroke of the pen from the Department of Finance can transfer the money to the Central Valley projects, per the Budget Act of 2012, Section 2.00, Item 2660-104-6043, Section 3, Provision 2.

The legislature's momentous step leaves many questions unanswered.

• Is the funding of Caltrain improvements using high-speed rail bonds legal?
• Will opponents hog-tie the electrification EIR to the high-speed rail EIRs in a bid to delay?
• Can the existing electrification EIR be tweaked, or is it back to square one?
• How eagerly will the CHSRA push electrification forward, if the focus is initially in the Central Valley?
• Is it legal to spend HSR money on CBOSS?
• Will the project be shovel-ready by June 30th, 2018?
• How will questions of leadership be resolved, among Caltrain, the CHSRA, Parsons Brinckerhoff, and the regional design consultants?
• Will the agencies finally treat technical compatibility between Caltrain and HSR, as long advocated in these pages, as the priority that it ought to be, allowing any train to use any track to serve any platform?

Only one thing is sure, there is a lot more sausage-making still ahead of us.

Primarily Two Tracks

Figure 4 from Caltrain's study, showing several possible locations for new overtake tracks.  Not all would be built.

In recent days, the high-speed rail Draft Revised 2012 Business Plan as well as the Caltrain Blended Operations Analysis were released to the public.  Both of these documents refer to the peninsula blended solution as a "primarily two-track" system, in the hope of allaying fears of massive eminent domain takings of homes and business-- fears that are largely unfounded, but fanned relentlessly by the local press and project opponents.

The confusion continues over what "primarily two tracks" precisely means, because neither agency seems ready to come out yet and state it in crystal clear terms.  The process still needs to unfold.  Luckily, enough data has already been published to allow a reasonably good reading of the tea leaves, down to the nearest tenth of a mile.

Phase 1 will be electrification, according to the memorandum of understanding currently being put in place by MTC and other parties.  This project already has federal environmental clearance and is very close to state environmental clearance, although a strong push will be made by opponents to subsume Caltrain's electrification EIR into the peninsula HSR project EIR, a document that will not be finalized (let alone litigated!) until 2015.  This phase of the project will not add any tracks, so the total length of quadruple track will stay as it is today (2 miles in Brisbane; 1 mile in Redwood City; 2 miles in Sunnyvale).

• Purpose: improves Caltrain, enables future peninsula HSR
• Time frame: 2013 - 2019
• Total miles of quadruple track: 5
• Grade-separated fraction: 61% (64 of 104 road crossings)
• Trains per peak hour per direction: 6
• Cities impacted by construction: none

Phase 2 will be a concrete viaduct through Santa Clara, completed at the same time as HSR reaches San Jose sometime in the mid-2020's, enabling a one-seat ride to San Francisco under the so-called "Bay-to-Basin" scenario.  If the CHSRA's grandiose plans (described in an October 2011 report to the legislature) are to be believed, this will entail building a massive double-decker station complex at San Jose.  A new four-track HSR station will hulk over the existing Diridon Station, perched on massive concrete straddle bents.  A more than 3-mile-long, 60-foot-tall viaduct will be constructed northwards, joining the existing corridor at approximately milepost 44.5, north of the Santa Clara Caltrain station.  Overpasses at Hedding and De La Cruz will be demolished and rebuilt as underpasses to make room for the new double-deck rail right of way.  Note that Caltrain's study considers this phase as part of the "baseline infrastructure" and therefore does not count it as additional tracks.

• Purpose: enable single-seat HSR ride to San Francisco
• Time frame: mid 2020's
• Total miles of quadruple track: 8
• Grade-separated fraction: 61% (64 of 104 road crossings) 
  
• Trains per peak hour per direction: 8 (6 Caltrain + 2 HSR)
• Cities impacted by construction: Santa Clara

Phase 3 will be the "short" mid-line overtake from 9th Ave in San Mateo (milepost 18.3) to Whipple Ave in Redwood City (milepost 24.8), which enables HSR service to increase from 2 to 4 trains per hour during the peak.  The data tables in Caltrain's study show that this overtake facility provides nearly all the benefits of the "full" mid-line overtake that extends southwards through Redwood City, but presumably at far lower cost.  The transportation-industrial complex's approach to the short mid-line overtake might very well entail demolishing the entire Belmont - San Carlos grade separation and replacing it with a four-track viaduct on concrete stilts.  A more realistic implementation will likely be to tack on another 15 feet of width on each side of the existing grade separations to accommodate new overtake tracks, something that should have been done in 1999 (but why do it right when you can do it twice?).  In San Mateo, new four-track grade separations will be built at 25th, 28th and 31st Avenues.

• Purpose: increases HSR peak capacity from 2 to 4 trains per hour per direction
• Time frame: late 2020's
• Total miles of quadruple track: 14.5
• Grade-separated fraction: 63% (67 of 106 road crossings) 
  
• Trains per peak hour per direction: 10 (6 Caltrain + 4 HSR)
• Cities impacted by construction: San Mateo, Belmont, San Carlos

Phase 4 will be the "full" mid-line overtake, also known as the Great Redwood City Grade Separation, creating a new mid-peninsula HSR stop at Redwood City and grade-separating a dense cluster of six grade crossings.  The four-track mid-line overtake will be extended southwards to milepost 26.3, merging with the existing four-track section.

• Purpose: adds mid-peninsula HSR stop
• Time frame: late 2020's
• Total miles of quadruple track: 16
• Grade-separated fraction: 69% (73 of 106 road crossings) 
  
• Trains per peak hour per direction: 10 (6 Caltrain + 4 HSR)
• Cities impacted by construction: Redwood City 

Beyond that, it gets murkier.  Presumably, the 33 remaining grade crossings that are not removed under Phases 1 - 4 will be addressed on a case-by-case basis, with grade separations designed and built in consultation with the respective cities.  San Francisco's downtown extension to the Transbay Transit Center may finally be built.  Additional passing tracks may be constructed where it's relatively easy and cheap, for example the remaining 2.5 miles from Lawrence to Santa Clara and the "north overtake" in Caltrain's study, an additional 8.2 miles of quadruple track from Brisbane south into Burlingame.

Only one thing is quite certain: the peninsula rail corridor will categorically NOT remain a two-track operation, even if it might still use "primarily" two tracks.  At a minimum, approximately 16 miles or over a third of its length will be quadruple-tracked.  As the process unfolds, it will become apparent that the cities of Belmont, Redwood City, San Carlos, San Mateo and Santa Clara will be the first to suffer the construction impacts.

Will BART Bust a Move?

The unfortunate reality of Bay Area transit politics is that twenty-eight agencies compete for funding and ridership with very limited coordination.   At the top of this pile is BART, the biggest of them all.  Not so much BART the transit operator, but BART the expansion-thirsty transit-industrial complex (functioning somewhat like the military-industrial complex), as facilitated by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC).  (photo at right by cplbasilisk, modified with permission)

With recent developments in the peninsula high-speed rail story, it's worth taking a step back and imagining BART / MTC's next moves in this slow-motion game of political chess, assuming for a moment the following motivations:

• Expand as much as possible, constructing the most new infrastructure in the most corridors using the most consultant engineering and "craft hours" of construction labor
• Soak up as much federal, state and local funding as possible
• Take over high-ridership corridors, even at the expense of other agencies
• Ring the San Francisco Bay with BART, as initially planned in the 1950s

The resulting exercise can either be viewed as a crackpot conspiracy theory, or as a simple thought experiment rooted in recent history.  Where MTC and BART have successfully assembled billions of dollars for the Millbrae/SFO and San Jose/Santa Clara extensions, Caltrain has repeatedly floundered: no downtown extension, no electrification, no Dumbarton rail, and the list goes on and on...  Supposing this historical pattern were to be sustained, what specifically would be BART's logical next moves?

Move #1: Drop Support For Pacheco HSR.

The long-running Pacheco-Altamont controversy over the Bay Area HSR alignment, still simmering in the courts, is driven on one hand by not-in-my-backyard sentiment in communities impacted by the Pacheco alignment (notably Palo Alto, Menlo Park, and Atherton) and on the other hand by transit activists who argue that the Altamont alignment makes far more technical sense to serve the immediate transportation needs of the Bay Area in a coordinated and sustainable way.

BART and MTC were firmly in the Pacheco camp because of the need to preserve for BART a key piece of rail right of way between Fremont and San Jose (the former Western Pacific line, purchased by VTA in 2002).  This right of way would almost certainly have been claimed by HSR under any reasonable Altamont scenario.  Worse, a blended HSR/commuter rail project could have undermined the very purpose and need for BART in that corridor.

Today, this concern has been overcome by events, and the BART extension to San Jose is a done deal.  Pacheco HSR no longer plays a role in defending this important BART turf, and thus may no longer garner the same level of support from BART and MTC as it once did.



Move #2: Promote Altamont HSR with a BART Connection at Livermore.

The BART board recently approved a more detailed study of a future extension to Livermore, along I-580.  While this extension is a waste of money on its own merits (as are most BART extensions), and is still far from becoming reality, it could be sold as a key enabler for a phased implementation of HSR, especially under a budget-constrained environment.

Livermore as a BART-HSR transfer point has been considered before, if only discreetly, as part of the half-hearted "Altamont overlay" that the CHSRA has been studying in addition to the baseline Pacheco Pass alignment--always with the insistent disclaimer that the Altamont corridor serves a completely different "purpose and need" than the high-speed rail project.  Meanwhile, MTC suggested as recently as 2007 that HSR terminate at Livermore BART, absorbing all HSR ridership into BART (see comment L017-8).

As an interim phasing opportunity, Livermore BART would actually work quite well:

• Earlier and quicker HSR service to downtown San Francisco and the greater Bay Area
• Earlier and quicker HSR service to Sacramento (quicker than the Amtrak Capitols)
• Cheaper construction with less tunneling to achieve "Bay-to-Basin" connectivity

The Livermore BART extension would be routed south along Vasco Rd. or Greenville Rd., past the Laboratory, to terminate just south of Livermore at a new BART/HSR interchange station on the outskirts of town.  This station would be located on an Altamont HSR alignment proposed by outside groups but studiously ignored by the CHSRA.  This Altamont HSR route is known as the SETEC alignment, after the French HSR consulting firm that performed the preliminary engineering.  The SETEC alignment is noteworthy in that it avoids major residential property impacts to Livermore and Pleasanton, one of the main arguments used by the CHSRA to select Pacheco in the environmental study process.

Here is a rough point-by-point comparison of Altamont/Livermore and Pacheco/Gilroy interim scenarios:

	Altamont HSR to Livermore	Pacheco HSR to Gilroy
HSR Trip Time, from Fresno	0:48 Fresno - Livermore	0:39 Fresno - Gilroy
Continuing Trip to San Francisco	0:57 on BART Livermore to Embarcadero	1:45 on Caltrain Gilroy to SF (electrified)
Fresno - San Francisco CBD	~ 2:00 (40 minutes quicker) including transfers	~ 2:40 including transfers
Fresno - Oakland	~ 1:50 (50 minutes quicker)	~ 2:40
Fresno - San Jose	~ 1:50 (10 minutes slower) assumes BART to SJ	~ 1:40
HSR Track Length	140 miles (25 miles more)	115 miles
Phase 2 HSR to Reach Sacramento	60 miles (50 miles less)	110 miles
HSR Tunnel Length (interim)	about 4 miles (6 miles less)	about 10 miles

Using the money saved by tunneling only 4 miles to Livermore instead of 10 miles to Gilroy, the additional 25 miles of track to reach Livermore are easily paid for-- and then some, since 50 miles of track will already have been built to reach Sacramento, as opposed to zero for Pacheco.

Move #3: Dangle the Carrot of a PAMPA Subway.

The Palo Alto Weekly recently published an article headlined "Four-track design back on the table for high-speed rail," apparently implying that it was once off the table.  That seems to be the crux of a major disconnect between the city and the high-speed rail Authority.  The blended Caltrain / HSR plan, as proposed in recent months by Simitian-Eshoo-Gordon and currently being analyzed by Caltrain, was always viewed by the CHSRA as an intermediate phase, a stepping stone to the immutable objective of a four-track high-speed railroad through PAMPA (Palo Alto - Menlo Park - Atherton).  This viewpoint is borne out in the 2012 draft business plan.  Palo Alto, on the other hand, views the blended plan as a final state of the peninsula rail corridor for the foreseeable future, and believes that the four-track plan should no longer even appear in the program EIR.

BART's best move here is again to promote Altamont HSR.  For PAMPA, the advantages are thus:

• No four-track HSR grade separations, ever
• No additional right of way (a.k.a. eminent domain) needed, ever
• No HSR traffic on top of commuter rail traffic (only 6 trains per hour per direction)
• Future opportunity for a two-track BART subway, considerably cheaper to construct than a four-track high-speed corridor.  A two-track BART tunnel box is four to five times smaller, in cross-sectional area, than a four-track HSR tunnel box.  This makes it remotely feasible to have the cities participate in the financing of a subway, much as was done in Berkeley in the 1960s, to further enhance property values.

For BART itself, the main advantage of Altamont is of course to preserve the future possibility of ringing the bay by connecting Santa Clara BART to Millbrae BART.  The argument that BART can make in pleading this case is that all existing infrastructure north of Millbrae (i.e. fresh grade separations in San Bruno, and existing tunnels to San Francisco) would be dedicated exclusively to HSR, thus mitigating the astronomical cost of accommodating Caltrain detailed in the 2012 business plan.

As billions of dollars slowly coalesce for a possible blended HSR / Caltrain plan on the peninsula, time will become pressing for BART to bust a move.  If the motives that underlie the above narrative are remotely true, then any attempt to electrify the peninsula corridor shall be thwarted, just the same as it has been in past decades.

The Bookend Approach

There's a lot of turmoil surrounding the California High-Speed Rail Authority these days.  Some want to forget the whole thing, while most sensible politicians (as well as the peer review group) seem to want to re-plan the project to start with the ends rather than the middle, so as to end up with something useful sooner--not to mention spending the federal money already allocated.  What if this actually happened in the coming months?

The first thing you can be sure of is that a tug of war would occur between the SF Bay Area and the LA Basin, with maybe just a sprinkle of money to placate the Central Valley.  Out of the six billion of federal and state monies currently available, let's assume that $2.65 billion ends up here.  Let's further assume that the money is actually spent in ways that enable high-speed rail, rather than poured down the usual black hole of BART extensions, never to be heard from again.  What could and should be built in the San Francisco Bay Area for $2.65 billion of high-speed rail funding?

The bookend approach, in order of priority:

NUMBER ONE: Deploy ERTMS, the train control system that will be used for HSR.  The peninsula corridor, which happens to be in need of a federally-mandated positive train control system but has nowhere near enough money to pay for it, could serve as the perfect testbed to import this key enabling technology of HSR to the United States.  In exchange for full HSR funding, Caltrain would agree to abandon their unfunded and HSR-incompatible CBOSS project.

• HSR benefit: pilot deployment of ERTMS standard in the US, ready for expansion to the state-wide HSR network.  All regulatory hurdles cleared.
• HSR funding share: $150 million (Caltrain can pay for other items such as the backup control facility) 
• Environmental Clearance: not required 
• Timeline: easily completed before 2015, following the example of Rio de Janeiro or Auckland.
• Independent Utility: fulfills federal PTC mandate for Caltrain

NUMBER TWO: Electrify the peninsula rail corridor, exactly as already planned.  25kV overhead lines are 100% compatible with HSR and will enable a one-seat ride to San Francisco as soon as HSR reaches the peninsula.  Out of the $1.2 billion budget for the electrification project, $400 million is for a new fleet of Caltrain electric trains, and $800 million is to string up the wires.  It would seem fair to use HSR money for 50% of the fixed infrastructure, and let Caltrain / MTC come up with other funding sources to pay for the trains and the other half of the shared infrastructure.

• HSR benefit: one-seat access to San Francisco and SFO, without changing trains in San Jose
  
• HSR funding share: $400 million (50% of infrastructure cost)
• Environmental Clearance: Complete and shovel-ready. Federal clearance is in hand, and state clearance is a simple matter of Caltrain certifying their EIR.  Preliminary engineering well underway.
• Timeline: completed by 2016.
• Independent Utility: provides faster, better, quieter, less polluting peninsula commute for over 10 million riders a year, and helps "ring the bay" with electric rail transit, relieving highway 101 congestion

NUMBER THREE: Build a mid-line overtake facility.  This 6.5 mile section of four-track railroad would expand the rail corridor from 9th Avenue through southern San Mateo, Belmont and San Carlos, ending at Whipple in Redwood City, by adding a new pair of tracks outboard of the existing tracks.  This adds just 15 feet on each side of existing grade separations.  The overtake would include new grade separations at 25th, 28th and 31st Avenues in San Mateo, and new stations with central island platforms at San Carlos, Hillsdale and Hayward Park.  Belmont already has a suitable island platform.  The mid-line overtake has already been identified as an important enabler of blended operations, by providing an opportunity for faster trains to pass slower trains.

• HSR benefit: 20 minute shorter travel time to San Francisco
• HSR funding share: $600 million (100% of the cost)
• Environmental Clearance: not started.
• Timeline: probably not complete by 2017 spending deadline of federal HSR funding, unless environmental clearance is fast-tracked.
• Independent Utility: provides reliable overtaking of Caltrain locals by Caltrain expresses, at a four-platform Hillsdale station where passengers may conveniently transfer between a local and an express that dwell simultaneously on either side of the same island platform (see diagram above).  This improves service frequencies and trip times for millions of riders a year.

NUMBER FOUR: Build the downtown extension (DTX).  This 1.2-mile tunnel would extend the peninsula rail corridor to the Transbay Transit Center in the heart of San Francisco's business district.  This is a very pricey project at $3 billion YOE dollars, and one additional complication is that MTC recently gave it a very low benefit/cost ratio--most likely to protect BART ridership on the Millbrae line, and future plans to ring the bay with BART.  (A very frank, adult conversation will soon have to be had regarding unspoken aspirations for BART to ring the bay.)

•  HSR benefit: Direct access to the jobs-rich San Francisco central business district, with excellent transit connections to the East Bay to maximize the HSR ridership catchment area on the first day of service.  Realizes full benefit of $400 million investment of HSR funds already made in the Transbay Center train box.
• HSR funding share: $1.5 billion (50% of the cost)
• Environmental Clearance: Complete and shovel-ready.  Both EIS and EIR are cleared, and preliminary engineering is well underway.
• Timeline: could be completed by 2017 spending deadline of federal HSR funding.
• Independent Utility: provides commuter access to San Francisco's central business district, where there are more jobs than near all the other Caltrain stations combined.  This would most likely result in a system ridership gain of 25% or more, easily 3 million new riders a year.

Some high-speed rail supporters will doubtless see this as a wish list of projects that benefit Caltrain at the expense of true high-speed rail.  However, these are exactly the four projects you would start with in order to build a modern standard-gauge electric railroad into the heart of San Francisco, just what is needed so HSR can run directly to San Francisco's business district from day one.  Insofar as Caltrain happens to also aspire to become a modern, standard-gauge electric railroad, yes, Caltrain benefits greatly.  But let us not forget that the non-HSR funding share to complete these four projects would be well over $2 billion; this is not a shameless and wasteful diversion of HSR funding, but a cost-effective investment in a compatible system that is more than the sum of its parts.

The very high level of "independent utility" for peninsula commuters should not detract from the fact that each of these four projects is a direct enabler of HSR service to San Francisco, effective as soon as the backbone of the system is completed using later tranches of funding.  In the meantime, the earliest investment would pay off immediately, in a way that it never could if a raceway to nowhere were built in the Central Valley.

Blended Like Oil and Water

The Caltrain-HSR blended proposal, initiated by State Senator Simitian, Congresswoman Eshoo and Assemblymember Gordon to break an impending political impasse on the peninsula rail corridor, has now been evaluated by the HSR Authority's consultants.

Their version of it, submitted in a recent report to the legislature, would cost an astonishing $5.3 billion, even more than the $4.2 billion that the entire peninsula section was estimated to cost back in 2008.  This stunning price tag could have several possible explanations:

1. a repudiation of the blended approach, accomplished by deliberately inflating the budget.
2. an effort to pour the largest possible amount of concrete, regardless of actual operational benefit.
3. sheer engineering incompetence and complete disregard for the new fiscal reality.

A Closer Look At Costs

While the detailed breakdown of that project budget is not provided, it's not too hard to back it out based on what is described.  Here's how it might approximately add up, including project management and contingency costs:

• $0.3 billion to build grade separations at 25th, 28th and 31st Avenues in San Mateo, and to expand the corridor to four tracks from the southern border of San Mateo up to the vicinity of 9th Ave (milepost 18.3), with new four-track stations built at Hillsdale and Hayward Park
• $0.3 billion to expand the existing grade separations in Belmont and San Carlos to four tracks.  This would include new stations built at San Carlos (south of the current location) and Belmont.
• $1.0 billion to fully grade-separate the rail corridor through Redwood City, with expansion to four tracks and an elevated station.  New grade separations would be created at six locations: Whipple, Brewster, Broadway, Maple, Main, and Chestnut.  The new four-track section would tie in to the existing four-track section at Redwood Junction.  Should the Redwood City grade separations be built below grade, costs would be even higher.
• $0.5 billion to burrow a single-track tunnel under the Millbrae station to "save" the existing Caltrain / BART station from complete demolition.  As described in the Alternatives Analysis, the station itself would be re-arranged to accommodate a segregated HSR platform at grade and the southbound Caltrain platform underground.  The tunnel approach would require two new grade separations at Center St. and Santa Paula.
• $1.0 billion to build a six-mile (yes, six miles!) 60-foot tall elevated viaduct from Lawrence Expressway (milepost 40.9) all the way into the upper level of a massive new elevated HSR station complex in San Jose.
• $0.2 billion to demolish existing overpass grade separations at De La Cruz (Santa Clara) and Hedding (San Jose), to be replaced with underpasses to make way for the six-mile viaduct.
• $1.5 billion to electrify the entire corridor, an estimate based on Caltrain's latest electrification budget but discounting the cost of Caltrain's new electric train fleet.
• $0.3 billion for positive train control and technical integration with the HSR system's train control system, which will differ from the PTC solution adopted by Caltrain.
• $0.2 billion for reconfigured station facilities at San Francisco and San Jose.

TOTAL:  $5.3 billion

All of these individual investments must be examined in the context of their operational utility, i.e. the value they add to creating a blended Caltrain / HSR rail corridor that is as flexible and efficient as possible and best meets the service expectation of rail passengers.  And on that basis, most of the above list falls woefully short.

Let's Do Some Value Engineering

• The six-mile (yes, six miles!) 60-foot tall viaduct to approach San Jose adds little operational value compared to cheaper alternatives such as laying additional track at grade from CP Coast (milepost 44.6) into San Jose.  The corridor is mostly 100 feet wide in this area, so the need for a viaduct--let alone a six-mile long viaduct that requires demolishing some perfectly fine grade separations that already exist--is highly questionable.  It is almost an insult to Simitian et al., who specifically requested that aerial structures be minimized.  This viaduct is the outcome of lazy engineering, the sort that avoids inter-agency coordination issues by using megatons of concrete to build over Caltrain, ACE, Amtrak, VTA, BART, UPRR, Caltrans, and everybody else.  Bottom line: with some hard negotiations and minimal takes of a few slivers of industrial property, four tracks can be built at grade all the way into Diridon Station.  Savings: - $1.1 billion
• A four-track mid-peninsula overtake facility is the key enabler of a blended solution. However, the bulk of the cost of this mid-line overtake is a massive Redwood City grade separation project that would eliminate one of the clusters of grade crossings on the peninsula rail corridor.  Is it truly necessary to do so right away in the first phase of the blended project?  Consider these two options:
  1. The CHSRA's proposed overtake facility: 9 miles long with 5 stations (potentially including the HSR stop at Redwood City, which does not help with overtaking)
  2. A somewhat shorter overtake facility: 6.5 miles long ending at Whipple Ave (milepost 24.8) with 4 stations.
  Option 2, while only 3/4 as long, entirely avoids the need to grade-separate an expanded four-track corridor clear through downtown Redwood City.  It also delays a fight against the city's inevitable demands to burrow the rail corridor inside an astronomically expensive tunnel.  The shorter overtake might make operations slightly less flexible and robust, but at the very worst, every Caltrain could be held or slowed for just two minutes to make up for that.  Bottom line: with minor timetable adjustments, the lion's share of the cost of the mid-line overtake can be avoided.  Savings: - $1.0 billion
• The half-billion tunnel in Millbrae is the wrong answer to the question of how to fit four Caltrain / HSR tracks through this station.  The entire Millbrae complex, including 3000-car parking garage, cost about $100 million in today's dollars.  Portions of it can be torn down and reconfigured with four tracks at grade for far less than that sum.  Bottom line: whatever the engineering constraints, you simply don't build a $500 million tunnel to "save" a $100 million station--at worst, you tear it down and start over.  Savings: - $0.4 billion
• The need to integrate Caltrain's CBOSS train control system with the HSR train control system will drive unnecessary costs, most likely resulting in what is known as "dual fitment" of train-borne signaling equipment.  Each high-speed train, California-wide, would need to be fitted with CBOSS hardware and software, with the appropriate interfaces to allow a seamless change-over when entering or leaving exclusive HSR tracks.  This is not a trivial expense, since safety-critical signaling computers approach the cost of aircraft avionics.  Bottom line: deploy ERTMS, not CBOSS.  Savings: - $0.2 billion

TOTAL SAVINGS: $2.7 billion

The very bottom line is this: we can get 95% of the bang for 50% of the buck.  Somebody needs to inject a little bit of sanity into the planning process if a blended solution is ever going to be feasible, if for no other reason that in these times, affordability determines feasibility.  That's why the CHSRA's proposal for the blended system is a disgrace, larded as it is with operationally dubious viaducts, tunnels, bridges and underpasses; in short, a project dreamed up by civil engineers writing their own checks.

Corridor Capacity Study, Free Edition

You may have heard that Caltrain is working on a corridor capacity study, to see how much high-speed rail traffic could be accommodated on the corridor without adding too many passing tracks or destroying commuter service quality.

While we wait for the outcome of this study, below is a decomposition of the problem into a range of possible solutions.


Some solutions have very little downside for HSR or Caltrain service:

• Get HSR off the peninsula corridor as much as possible, by using an Altamont alignment that joins the corridor in Redwood City (see Example 3 for details)
• Electrify the corridor
• Implement level boarding (not even on Caltrain's radar!)
• Put commuter platforms in the middle, with express passing tracks on the outside
• Put in a modern shared signaling system

Other solutions require compromise between the needs of high-speed rail passengers, the needs of commuter passengers, and the needs of surrounding communities.

• Slow down HSR, with lower top speed and all stops (Millbrae and Redwood City) made by all trains
• Close low-traffic Caltrain stations such as Atherton and Hayward Park
• Make peak-hour trains skip more stops-- which unfortunately denies frequent commuter service to communities precisely at the times when it is most needed
• Build additional grade separations wherever four tracks are required
  

Before we make any of these painful compromises, however, the most effective measures that do not require compromising service quality should be prioritized and vigorously pursued.

If one had to bet a six-pack of one's favorite microbrew (worth several orders of magnitude less than LTK Engineering's consulting contract), the outcome of the capacity study is likely to be:

• With 6 Caltrains per hour during the rush, spare capacity available for HSR is minimal on the existing tracks
  
• Capacity can be increased most effectively by matching train average speeds, i.e. slowing down HSR and/or speeding up Caltrain
• HSR trains will probably average no more than 60 mph between SF and SJ
• A mid-line overtake facility between Whipple @ Redwood City and 9th Ave @ San Mateo (requiring minimal new grade separations) would improve peak corridor capacity from 6 to 8 tph

We shall soon find out if we got our money's worth.