The Truth About CBOSS

$16 million was recently awarded by the FRA for the CBOSS project, Caltrain's Communications-Based Overlay Signal System. Caltrain CEO Michael Scanlon states in a Caltrain press release: "This initial federal investment will enable Caltrain to take an important step forward in our efforts to provide Bay Area communities with a modernized, sustainable commuter rail system that is fully compatible with future high-speed rail service". His counterpart at the California High-Speed Rail Authority, Roelof van Ark, intones in a CHSRA press release: "This latest step forward in federal support for California’s project means that we’ll be able to improve safety and service in the near term and integrate our project with local systems in the long term."

Fully compatible with high-speed rail service? Integrate HSR with local systems? Really?

Let's take a closer look. As regular readers know, CBOSS has often been criticized on this blog. Rather than rehash extensive previous commentary on CBOSS, let's rely on cold, hard facts obtained solely from primary source documents. You get to decide!

The Evidence

Exhibit A: Caltrain CBOSS Request For Proposal Package, Questions Received and Answers No. 3, dated 6 October 2010. Question #20 from a prospective bidder: "What assumptions should me made in terms of HSR? (Interoperability, Operations, sharing track, etc.)" The answer from Caltrain: "Under current RFP Scope of work, HSR Operations is not considered for this phase of PTC implementation."

Exhibit B: Caltrain CBOSS Request for Proposal Package, Questions Received and Answers No. 4, dated 9 October 2010. Question #16 from a prospective bidder: "Part 2, Section 3, Exh B, Spec 21001, 1.03D requires the system to be interoperable with California HSR signaling. HSR is undefined at this stage. As this solution is not known, Contractor cannot assess any effort associated with this interoperability requirement. Please clarify how Contractor should assess." The answer from Caltrain: "Interoperability with HSR signaling is not part of the Scope of work for Caltrain PTC system RFP."

Exhibit C: Caltrain CBOSS Request for Proposal Package, Questions Received and Answers No. 6, dated 15 October 2010. Question #31 from a prospective bidder: "The RFP addresses HSR. What assumptions should the proposer make in order to address HSR requirements?" The answer from Caltrain: "Evaluation of the potential for the proposed solution to meet future HSR needs will not be part of the proposal evaluation."

Exhibit D: Caltrain's Positive Train Control Implementation Plan, a 183-page document required by law to be submitted to the FRA and detailing how Caltrain will implement its new signaling system, mentions HSR exactly once in the introduction on page 1-1. That's a slight improvement over a previous revision of the document, rejected by the FRA, which did not mention HSR at all. Section 5.1 of the document, discussing Interoperability with other railroads, does not mention or discuss HSR. Appendix D, containing letters of understanding to coordinate PTC implementation with other rail entities, does not include the CHSRA.

Exhibit E: Caltrain's Positive Train Control Notice of Product Intent, a 50-page document that describes how CBOSS will operate, explains in Appendix A section 12 the interoperability with other rail entities. Out of five paragraphs, four mention the Union Pacific, and zero mention California high-speed rail.

Exhibit F: The California High-Speed Rail Authority's extensive collection of technical memos includes Technical Memo 3.3.1, released 25 June 2010, detailing the concept of the system that will be used to control trains on the high-speed rail network. Section 1.2.4, Automatic Train Control Specification Requirements, states "The prime requirement for the CHSTP ATC system is that the technology must already exist as part of an operating system with proven experience worldwide on at least one high speed passenger railway." CBOSS clearly does not fall into this category, which means CHSRA will necessarily use another train control system than CBOSS on its own tracks.

Serious Questions

In light of all this evidence, the happy talk about CBOSS paving the way for HSR rings hollow, and raises some serious questions:

• Is the Caltrain leadership (board and CEO) even aware of the details of the program being carried out by staff and consultants? Do they know that interoperability with HSR is explicitly excluded from the CBOSS RFP?
  
  
• What is the plan for making CBOSS interoperable with HSR? Might it make sense to develop such a plan before awarding the CBOSS implementation contract, which may happen in the next couple of months?
  
  
• Does the $251 million budget for CBOSS include the cost to make CBOSS interoperable with high-speed rail, as specifically excluded in the current RFP, or will taxpayers be asked for even more money?
  
  
• Does the Caltrain and CHSRA leadership (respective CEOs and Boards) know that California HSR is slated to use a different train control system than CBOSS?
  
  
• If California high-speed trains will use another train control system than CBOSS, why is federal HSR money being spent on the development of CBOSS? Can or should Caltrain expect HSR monies to cover the remaining 90% of the CBOSS cost that is not yet funded?
  
  
• How, why and when were existing train control technologies, such as ERTMS, the standard that shows the strongest signs of being favored for HSR in California (see TM-3.1.1 section 6.1), eliminated from consideration on the peninsula corridor?
  

The local press has spent numerous column-inches, sometimes even two-page spreads, covering the Caltrain CEO's compensation package. But this is $16 million we're talking about, heading rapidly for $251 million. And not a peep from the press.

News Roundup, World Series Edition

Supplemental AA Supplement: The CHSRA posts the latest round of tweaks to the peninsula alternatives analysis. The updated report is due in November. (Note: this briefing was abridged by the CHSRA, shortly after being posted. The link is to the original slides that were removed from the CHSRA website.)

The Money Goes Poof: since the Feds have specifically ear-marked $715 million in HSIPR funding for the Central Valley, the winner-take-all, four-way horse race between Merced - Fresno, Fresno - Bakersfield, Los Angeles - Anaheim, and San Francisco - San Jose is for all intents and purposes decided before the CHSRA board even gets to vote. Bottom line: SF - SJ is out of the running and will not receive any of the $2.25 billion in ARRA stimulus funds. That has huge implications on process: the rush to beat a 2012 shovels-in-the-dirt deadline is gone.

Ray Writes Anna: the Secretary of Transportation writes a letter to assure Congresswoman Eshoo and concerned peninsula residents that "no final decision has been made regarding the design of this segment, and DOT must approve any final alternative in order for it to receive Federal funds. As long as this process is underway, we cannot prejudge the final outcome." In short, he claims there is adult supervision and the mad rush (now moot--see above) for early federal funding will not preempt due environmental process.

Anna Writes Ray: the Congresswoman replies, profusely thanking the Feds for their oversight and the few crumbs thrown our way (a paltry $16 million, nominally ear-marked for re-arranging the platforms at San Francisco's 4th & King station) ...

... and asks for CBOSS Pork: Eshoo asks that the $16 million be re-allocated to the CBOSS project. She pointedly states "We can assure you that the PTC project is not a "throwaway" that would benefit only Caltrain and require replacement or costly upgrade when HSR is built."

If only that were true.

If only the secretary could hear from people who didn't drink the CBOSS Kool-Aid... for example, by reading Caltrain's own crystal-clear statements that the design of CBOSS will not take HSR into account. Or simply typing "CBOSS Caltrain" into Google. Recall that CBOSS is (a) an overlay system (that's what the 'O' stands for) that cannot function on its own as a stand-alone HSR-capable signaling system, (b) is designed primarily for freight trains, not HSR, and (c) is currently vaporware. For the $230 million they are trying to marshall for this science project (a massive sum with an elastic upper bound, to be exercised via contractual engineering change orders) they could simply install ERTMS, the emerging worldwide HSR standard, at very little cost or schedule risk.

Message to LaHood and Eshoo: now that wouldn't be a throwaway.

If We Had Four Billion Dollars...

The recent Executive / Administrative Committee meeting featured an interesting memo regarding the application for another $2.3 billion of HSR federal funding to be distributed nationwide. Last time around, the CHSRA bagged $1.85 billion out of $8 billion of ARRA stimulus funding distributed nationwide. The additional funding, if CHSRA continues to bat .231, is on the order of $530 million.

The memo examines various scenarios where ARRA funding and Prop 1A bonds, of which a total of $3.3 billion is claimed to be available, are combined with new federal funding to reach a threshold of "independent utility" for one of the many segments of the California high-speed rail project.

If the San Francisco to San Jose segment were chosen as the initial recipient of this funding, then nearly $4 billion would become available for construction, still quite short of what will ultimately be necessary. The hypothetical question examined in the memo is how this money would be spent.

Salient points:

• the CHSRA is starting to realize that they can't use a "Big Bang" approach where everything is constructed at once. For the first time, there is talk of phasing and a "building block" approach within the peninsula segment.
  
• phasing means construction would start first on the ~26 mile stretch between San Francisco and Redwood City, avoiding the controversy in PAMPA (Palo Alto - Menlo Park - Atherton).
  
• $4 billion would only cover elevated grade separations; trenches through Burlingame and San Mateo would not be included.
  
• ERTMS is mentioned in the same breath as CBOSS, an encouraging first baby step in the right direction.
  
• FRA would likely frown on using high-speed rail funds to provide "independent utility" for what is primarily a commuter rail corridor, not an intercity corridor

Of course, all this is purely hypothetical. Consider that (1) only one single segment could be started as the marquee project for California high-speed rail; (2) the high level of controversy on the peninsula makes it highly unlikely that the environmental clearance will be obtained on schedule; and (3) short-term improvements that benefit primarily Caltrain will be difficult to pass off as "independent utility" for intercity rail service. The likelihood of $4 billion suddenly hitting the peninsula is fairly close to zero.

Strange Bedfellows Indeed

The June 2nd CHSRA Operations Committee meeting audio recording included some interesting information that was neither in the agenda nor in the PowerPoint slides, regarding the relationship between Caltrain and the CHSRA.

The True Meaning of Track Sharing

The following exchange took place between Rod Diridon, board member of the CHSRA, and Tony Daniels, the program manager for the entire technical effort--a sort of godfather figure of the HSR project. They had been discussing and praising Caltrain's recently obtained FRA waiver, which allows Caltrain to operate European-style electric trains provided that certain conditions are met. Here's where the discussion went next:

Diridon: The joint track waiver that FRA is going to be giving now to Caltrain, is for them to use diesel and electric, their electric, not our vehicles, on their track.

Daniels: Right. Compliant and non-compliant is the best way to look at it.

Diridon: I understand. But to be more graphic here, it's the difference between using diesel locomotives and the lighter European or Asian type electric powered vehicles.

Daniels: Only for passengers. No freight.

Diridon: For passenger service, on the same track.

Daniels: Not freight.

Diridon: Right, and of course that assumes positive train control.

Daniels: Yeah.

Diridon: Have we thought about using their tracks for our … locomotives, or…

Daniels: We are. We are doing it…

Diridon: I meant their double-track system for our system.

Daniels: We are doing it.

Pourvahidi: Instead of our tracks, instead of having our tracks?

Diridon: No, I don't see in our alternatives any place…

Daniels: No no just, sorry, (…) it's not that we can't run on it, we can, if it was necessary, in the same way as the Caltrain trains can run on ours, our so-called tracks. It's just that there's not the capacity.

Diridon: Well I understand capacity.

Daniels: Right. But you can't work on either. We're planning to keep them separated except when you come in from Bayshore into 4th & King and ultimately Transbay, we have to mix ourselves on the track. As we go into Transbay, for example, we'll use the same track going in.

Diridon: Though we certainly wouldn't prefer it. But if we were stuck along the peninsula someplace with no more than a two-track system, … have you thought about that?

Daniels: Uhhh, it would change completely the whole plan. Right now, we're kind of…

Diridon: I'm not proposing it. Don't misunderstand me.

Daniels: We looked at it operationally, at 60,000 feet, and just… we're talking 22 trains an hour. That's not on, you can't turn around.

Diridon: You mean at maximum, there's 22 trains an hour. Not to begin with.

Daneils: No, but ultimately, when you're starting, you're going to be on the order of something like 18 trains an hour. Then you've got to turn them around at the other end. That's where the difficulty is, not running them on the tracks.

Diridon: You're talking about Caltrain now?

Daniels: Yeah. You can't turn that number of trains around at the terminal end.

The key nugget is highlighted in red. Despite Caltrain's dogged insistence to the contrary, the CHSRA does not, repeat, DOES NOT, plan to share tracks with Caltrain on the peninsula. Their plan is to have their own pair of exclusive-use tracks all the way up to Bayshore. Those HSR tracks could only be "shared" by Caltrain under rare circumstances when another track is out of service--a sort of breakdown lane, and certainly not a mixed-use corridor that would allow Caltrain to provide both frequent AND fast service.

This can and should be construed as a downright rape of Caltrain. HSR is going to be brutishly rammed up the peninsula corridor without due regard to the enormous benefits that a truly shared corridor could provide for peninsula commuters--whether they ride the train or drive.

Keep Your Hands Off My Stimulus

Another interesting exchange occurred regarding the $2.3 billion of federal stimulus funding that the FRA has awarded to California. As noted repeatedly at the operations committee meeting, the late 2011 deadline for stimulus funding is extremely tight, with environmental clearance (a.k.a "shovel readiness") of the peninsula high-speed rail project unlikely to be obtained, let alone litigated. Sensing the possibility that this time-critical federal funding could slip away to other parts of the state, the Bay Area congressional delegation is supporting Caltrain's effort to jockey for some of the HSR bacon.

Diridon: Also, when would be an appropriate time to talk about the impact of the attempt by the Caltrain system to acquire ARRA funds directly.

(…)

Daniels: I think that's a separate matter for the authority, I think, to try and resolve what… is Steve Schnaidt [legislative affairs consultant] here? Because he brought this up as an item that we need to try and resolve, because there is some conflict between what the peninsula wishes to do and what we're doing on the high-speed rail, and that has not been cleaned up yet, I don't think.

Diridon: Can I ask a further question there, sorry to take so much time. [Friendly banter about Diridon taking so much time.] It seems to me that the environmental clearances that the Caltrain system has, that they want to fund, are based on a Caltrain type of service.

Daniels: That's right.

Diridon: Not on a four-track system.

Daniels: Correct.

Diridon: As a consequence, if you're talking about attempting to use ARRA funds to do their electrification on a two-track system, or to do grade separations on a two-track system, it's counter-productive to our objectives. Is that not a factual statement?

Daniels: It is and it isn't. It's not a black-and-white answer. I mean you could structure it, if you could do it under the environmental, our high-speed rail environmental process, it would help ultimately the building of our piece of it. You could state it that way, but …

Diridon: I absolutely understand that we could meld their clearance into ours and modify their clearance to include a four-track system instead of a two-track system or elevated or whatever ours is going to be. But the clearance that they have now, that they're trying to rely upon in order to qualify for ARRA funds directly, is based on a two-track system--on-grade, two-track system--which may not be what comes out of our study.

Daniels: It's very unlikely it will. We will be, we know already from everything we're doing that it's a four-track system to make it work for both sets of operations, commuter and high-speed rail.

Diridon: So, at some point Mr. Chairman we need to have a conversation on this subject. Because if ARRA funds go in to build for example an undercrossing for a two-track system, we then come along at a point in the future with a four-track system, that has to be accommodated by the undercrossing, we have to rebuild the undercrossing. That's the worst kind of government. We don't want to be tearing up brand new projects in order to change something.

Daniels: Well here's the answer to that movie, Rod. The question that we raised right at the beginning of them having some guidance from the FRA about how we're going to put these ARRA funds together will include whether we can or cannot do what you've said. On first glance, I don't think you can, because the ARRA funds are supposed to be for high-speed trains, and a two-track commuter line is not a high-speed train.

Let the games begin. As a clarification, Caltrain board has not actually certified the electrification EIR just yet. That action, unexpectedly held up last April, is reportedly slated for early July.

A Compromise Solution?

One of the many strings attached by FRA to their Caltrain waiver is that positive train control must be installed, tested, and FRA-certified before Caltrain can carry even a single passenger on an electric train. That puts PTC in the critical path. Unfortunately, Caltrain's PTC plans do not jive with high-speed rail's PTC plans. That lack of jive makes it exceedingly unlikely that ARRA high-speed rail money will be allowed to fund Caltrain's PTC project. In these lean times, just where is Caltrain going to find $230 million (opening bid!) to build something that's incompatible with high-speed rail?

A far better approach would be to grant Caltrain some ARRA money to become the first installation of ERTMS in the United States, blazing the path for high-speed rail. Everybody wins: Caltrain gets a lower-risk, timely PTC solution with funding to back it up--and HSR gets the bureaucracy of importing and tailoring ERTMS taken care of early, a state-wide benefit that is far from a parochial peninsula interest. With a viable PTC program in place, it might even make sense to start thinking of funding some Caltrain electrification infrastructure--infrastructure that would be quite useless without PTC. See the Catch-22?

When you're in a hole, the first thing to do is stop digging.

San Bruno Done Wrong

[Update 9/10] The city of San Bruno has now coughed up $350k to grease the rails for this project.

[Original Post] There are new signs that Caltrain's San Bruno grade separation project is now on the fast track to construction. The project appeared in the MTC's recent Peninsula Corridor Investment Strategy as a top candidate for a slice of federal high speed rail stimulus funding, and is now also slated to receive $30 million in Proposition 1B state funding. Like the stimulus money, this new source of construction funds comes with strings attached: Caltrain and the city of San Bruno must award the construction contract by July 2010, effectively in the blink of an eye for such a big construction project.

A recent presentation to the San Bruno city council reveals that the project is the same old design that Caltrain engineered with BkF nearly a decade ago, a design that wasn't half bad for commuter rail. That was then; with high speed rail in the mix, the requirements have now changed--but the design (since taken over by HNTB) has not. As proposed, the San Bruno grade separation is fundamentally ill-suited to high speed rail and mixed corridor operations. Evidently, nobody sees anything wrong with this.

"It is very hard to get a man to see the truth of a proposition when his salary depends on it being false." -- Mark Twain

The proposition, in this case, is that the San Bruno grade separation project is a poorly conceived design that will significantly set back HSR and Caltrain service, and is therefore a tragic waste of taxpayer money. Because of the millions of dollars involved, this proposition is likely to fall on deaf ears in our local transportation industrial complex.

Ready, Fire, Aim!

In the headlong rush to shovel readiness, key shortcomings are being ignored.

• The San Bruno grade separation fails to straighten the worst curve on the entire peninsula corridor. This is low-hanging fruit, which if not picked will cripple high speed rail trip times for generations to come. If there is only one place on the entire peninsula corridor where a small amount of eminent domain taking makes sense, this is it.
  
  
• The San Bruno grade separation is designed with outside platforms, which means that Caltrain is essentially shooting itself in the foot with regard to operational flexibility. As far as commuter service concerned, an island platform would be far superior when HSR is added to the corridor.
  
  
• The San Bruno grade separation is being built in two phases, first as a commuter-only two-track station, with later demolition required to build the second pair of tracks for HSR. That's doing it twice, rather than doing it right.

Penny Wise, Pound Foolish

$30 million (a small portion of which is featured in the opening photo by Tracy O) may sound like a lot, especially to a cash-starved public transit agency, but in the context of rebuilding the peninsula corridor for mixed Caltrain / HSR operations, it is but a drop in the bucket. The overall budget for the peninsula is well over $5,000 million, or nearly 200 times as much. Caltrain's outdated vision for San Bruno is not worth compromising the key corridor design decisions (curve speeds, express track configuration, station layout) that must be carefully weighed against the respective needs of Caltrain commuter service and long-distance high speed rail service.

Unless the key design decisions that impact service are not being weighed at all?

Caltrain, San Bruno and the CHSRA should slow down, take a deep breath, and DO IT RIGHT, even if that means turning down some funding. San Bruno can wait a few years, now that its dangerous rail crossings have received interim safety improvements.

The Peninsula Corridor Investment Strategy

The Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) recently published a Peninsula Corridor Investment Strategy, shepherding together various competing interests (CHSRA, TJPA, Caltrain, SFCTA, San Jose, VTA) to ensure that the Bay Area presents a unified front in its pursuit of a $1.8 billion slice of the $8.0 billion of ARRA stimulus funding available for high speed rail.

The MTC report contains a few surprises. But first, here are the projects contained in the $1.8 billion peninsula funding request. Also refer to pie chart at right.

• $400M for the San Francisco Transbay Transit Center "train box"
  
• $516M for Caltrain electrification
  
• $230M for Positive Train Control (automatic signal enforcement) for the peninsula (*)
  
• $212M for Caltrain's San Bruno grade separation project
  
• $205M for a newly revealed TTC train box "Rail Platform Extension" (*)
  
• $149M for reconfiguration / HSR modernization of Caltrain's Diridon station in SJ (*)
  
• $98M for reconfiguration / HSR modernization of Caltrain's 4th & King station in SF (*)
  
• $52M for DTX (SF downtown rail extension) design (*)
  

Projects with an asterisk (*) are funded nearly entirely out of the stimulus. Those without an asterisk have additional sources of funding already allocated.

A Two-Phase Approach

ARRA stimulus funds are targeted for so-called "shovel-ready" projects that can create short term jobs. That puts the California High Speed Rail Authority's San Francisco to San Jose HST project out of the running; the high speed rail project on the peninsula is in the early stages of an environmental clearance process that promises to be highly contentious, to be completed in 2011 at the earliest. While design work is already well underway, the controversial quadruple tracking, the numerous grade separations, and the wholesale reconstruction of nearly every Caltrain station planned by the CHSRA are not even close to shovel-ready.

That evidently pushed the MTC to split the construction of high speed rail on the peninsula into two phases. The first phase (as listed above) consists of a patchwork of projects that were already in the planning / environmental clearance pipeline before Proposition 1A was passed and HSR became a realistic prospect. It's definitely a pragmatic approach, with some caveats discussed below.

A Sudden Caltrain Bounty

Caltrain, with its appointed three-county board of directors, has historically held very little clout in getting its major capital improvements prioritized by the MTC. As recently as a few months ago, the MTC re-allocated $91M of Dumbarton rail (a.k.a. Caltrain) funding over to BART. Caltrain's biggest capital improvement project, planned for decades but with an ever-receding construction start date, is the electrification of the peninsula corridor with 25 kV overhead wires to provide quicker and more modern service. (artist's concept at left).

In the Peninsula Corridor Investment Strategy, Caltrain projects are suddenly front and center, thanks to their relatively advanced state of shovel-readiness and some new-found political support. This is a welcome change from the usual BART über alles funding strategy.

Caltrain electrification was always considered an unwelcome fly in the BART-around-the-Bay ointment. Now that billions of HSR funding have materialized, the Bay Area transportation-industrial complex is seemingly more attracted to HSR than to BART, if that is even possible. This changes everything: far from being an impediment to BART, electrification is now a "foot in the door" for bringing high speed trains into San Francisco and undertaking some very juicy construction projects during Phase 2--including several billion dollars of grade separations.

For thousands of Caltrain commuters, it should be welcome news that electrification has gone from problem to solution. Nevertheless, one question comes immediately to mind...

Is The Cart Before The Horse?

Does it make sense to electrify Caltrain in Phase 1, only to rebuild the corridor once the HSR project is environmentally approved and construction begins for Phase 2?

Pros:

• Commuter improvements are not beholden to HSR Phase 2 schedule, which may be delayed pending environmental review and inevitable litigation
  
• Electifying in Phase 1 conveniently coincides with the timing of Caltrain's unavoidable need to replace their obsolete train fleet
  
• Electrical substations and other lineside equipment can remain as-is for Phase 2 (Caltrain's planned 25 kV system is world-standard and fully compatible with HSR)
  
• The overhead contact system (basically anything above the rails) is made of modular components, easily reused or reconfigured
• Electrifying in Phase 1 allows testing / commissioning and possibly even limited high speed train service prior to Phase 2 completion
  

Cons:

• Building temporary "shoo-fly" detour tracks during grade separation construction becomes marginally more complicated
  
• Since vertical and horizontal alignment of tracks will be altered in many places, pole footings will need to be reconfigured. This is probably just a footnote on the demolition orders, considering that nearly all existing Caltrain station platforms and most existing grade separations will be entirely rebuilt in Phase 2.
  

Not that any of this matters, since the agenda is more political than technical--but thankfully, the pros do seem to outweigh the cons on a purely technical basis.

Bang for Buck: High

Go-Go Gadget Train Box!

A few months ago, the Transbay Joint Powers Authority (the agency charged with building the new Transbay Transit Center) got into a tiff with the CHSRA over the adequacy of their train platform layout. Entrenched in conflicting positions, the TJPA designed a 150-meter radius curve (extremely and impractically sharp) into one end of their platforms, while the CHSRA adamantly insisted on perfectly straight 400-meter platforms. We didn't hear any more about this little mind-the-gap issue, until now.

The Peninsula Corridor Investment Strategy asks $205 million for a "Rail Platform Extension" which would extend the train box north-eastward from Beale St. to Main St., as shown in the figure at right, to enable the sacrosanct straight platforms.

Sadly, it's another design by committee. The CHSRA's straight platforms are not a valid technical requirement. The underlying requirement concerns the admissible gap between the platform and a train's doors... and any reasonable value of that gap will still allow for some amount of curvature, however slight. For example, a 1 km radius will produce an additional gap of 5 cm (2 inches) at most. As if proof were necessary, high speed trains stop at curved platforms in nearly every county that has them.

Extending the train box has enormous potential for the Transbay Transit Center, for other reasons than making the platforms perfectly straight. That potential would be fully exploited by a proper design of the train box, to be discussed another time. And why does a 250-foot extension cost another 50% more than the basic train box?

Bang for Buck: Medium (for reasons unrelated to platform curvature)

San Bruno Grade Separation

A worthy project provided they do it right and straighten the darn curve.

Bang for Buck:
Zero (if built as Caltrain designed it)
Medium (if they straighten the curve)
High (if they straighten the curve and build an island platform)

Fourth and King Terminal

Caltrain had unfunded plans to modernize and expand the 4th & King terminal in San Francisco, as part of their Project 2025 plan. They even have a track layout in mind. For this, a design totally removed from system-level optimization of San Francisco rail operations, they are asking $98 million.

If somebody cared enough to configure the Transbay Terminal correctly, perhaps the 4th & King station wouldn't need to make up for Transbay's glaring lack of capacity.

Bang for Buck: Low (if only they fixed Transbay instead!)

Positive Train Control

The Investment Strategy calls for fully $230 million (!) to implement positive train control on the peninsula corridor. While PTC would finally bring the corridor out of the 19th century, why is Caltrain in the driver's seat to define the system for all of California? And why are they re-inventing the wheel by "defining the requirements" for a "new signal system" when this technology is a solved problem, sold as a commodity off-the-shelf item by countries that already have modern railways? Buy a fully debugged ETCS Level 2 system from your choice of several established vendors, and be done with it already! This is sure to become another disastrous R&D project.

Bang for Buck: Low

Diridon Pan-Galactic

San Jose's naked ambition to become the Grand Central of the West is on full display, with a $150 million grab to build a new station whose grandiose architectural configuration is rooted more firmly in a civic inferiority complex than any realistic transportation need.

Bang for Buck: Very Low

In closing, can we really expect $1.8 billion dollars (more than 20% of the nationwide high speed rail stimulus) to land in the Bay Area? Probably not. Whatever the Bay Area may score in Washington, the Peninsula Corridor Investment Strategy reveals a great deal about the region's evolving funding priorities.

Build Me A Train Box

The San Francisco Transbay Joint Powers Authority (TJPA), charged with building the new Transbay Transit Center, is now pursuing $400 million of federal stimulus funds to build the underground "train box" that will eventually serve as a downtown station for HSR and Caltrain.

The train box had been descoped in a phased approach adopted in June 2006, whereby the above-ground bus terminal would be built first in Phase 1, followed by a "top down" excavation of the train box below in Phase 2. This plan deferred the greatest expense until later: Phase 1 was estimated at $1.2 billion, compared to Phase 2 at $3 billion--for which few funding sources were identified. The availability of stimulus funding, and in particular an $8 billion slice allocated to high speed rail, has altered the TJPA's equation.

In its next board meeting on June 14th, the TJPA board will formally direct the design team to proceed with the train box included in Phase 1. Train box finishes (tracks, platforms, escalators, etc.) will be added later in Phase 2.

Thinking Inside the Box

The good news is that building the train box now undeniably saves money in the long run, since digging a cavernous hole underneath a fully operational bus station is no mean feat of engineering. Advantages of building the train box in Phase 1 include:

• $100 million of construction costs saved
• The opportunity to locate HVAC systems below grade, freeing up ground-level space and circulation
  
• No difficulty with shifting foundations as the train box is built
• Easier waterproofing (in an area with a high water table)
• Faster construction timeline
• $12 million of design costs and 4 months of design schedule saved by carrying only one option forward (dropping the "top down" option) allowing the project to reach "shovel readiness" before the stimulus funding deadline
• More jobs in a time of economic recession
  

The bad news is that rushing the train box component of the project to achieve "shovel readiness" threatens to lock in certain detailed design features that may later turn out to be ill-advised when someone actually tries to build an efficient, functioning, workable train station inside the box in Phase 2.

The problem basically boils down to reinforced concrete columns. The entire weight of the above-ground portion of the terminal building is carried into the train box foundations through a dense forest of concrete columns, typically 5 to 6 feet in diameter, spaced every 42 feet. These columns were placed in such as way as to prevent a reasonable layout of the tracks entering the station. As discussed in Focus on SF Transbay Transit Center, the TJPA's design for the station's "throat" is a disaster that urgently needs review by competent rail professionals before any concrete is poured... and the columns peppered throughout (see diagram at left) will literally set the design in concrete.

Building the train box and its concrete columns now, while deferring the detailed design of the train station to phase 2, presents a high risk of permanently screwing up the station design. By the time the TJPA gets serious about rectifying the design of the train station, it will be too late.

A Coordinated Plan?

The TJPA's agenda item mentions a Peninsula Corridor Investment Strategy, presumably hammered out among the TJPA, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), Caltrain and the CHSRA, to keep inter-agency conflict at a minimum in the methodical pursuit of stimulus funding. This strategy was likely included in the Bay Area Council's Economic Recovery Work Plan, which is said to request $3.4 billion for Bay Area high speed rail improvements under the following headings:

192: Caltrain electrification (~ $1.5 billion)
193: Caltrain positive train control
194: Caltrain San Bruno grade separation (told you so! ~ $300 million)
195: Caltrain North Terminal station improvements
199: City of San Jose, Diridon Station "Grand Central of the West" (~ $500 million)
205: TJPA Phase 1 train box (~ $400 million)

The dollar amounts are rough estimates, since they are not mentioned in the Recovery Work Plan. If the Bay Area secures even a fraction of this funding, get ready for quite a bit of construction, undertaken without a single cent of Proposition 1A high speed rail funds. Who would have guessed, last November?