Caltrain's effort to replace its diesel trains with electric ones hit a milestone on Thursday morning when the agency's board of directors signed off on a key environmental document that paves the way for the project's implementation.
Without any substantive discussion or dissent, the Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board approved the Final Environmental Impact Report for what is known as the Peninsula Corridor Electrification Project (PCEP). The agency, which oversees Caltrain, hopes to implement electrification along its 51-mile corridor between San Francisco and San Jose by 2020. The project is also a stepping stone for California's controversial high-speed rail system, which would share the newly electrified tracks with Caltrain along the Peninsula.
Replacing the existing diesel trains with electric ones would enable Caltrain to increase the number of trains it runs during peak hours from five to six. It would also allow for longer trains, thus helping Caltrain to keep up with its growing ridership numbers.
Caltrain also estimates the electrified system will reduce pollutant emissions by 97 percent by 2040. With the increased service and a proposed extension of the system in San Francisco, the agency also expects more than double the current weekday ridership and to take more than 600,000 daily vehicle miles off the region's roadways.
The project has major implications for Palo Alto, which boasts the second busiest Caltrain station in the entire system (after San Francisco) and which has largely supported the concept of electrifying the tracks. At the same time, the city has been concerned about several impacts of the Caltrain project, including the expected worsening of congestion at three Alma Street intersections. While Alma's intersections with Churchill Avenue, East Meadow Drive and Charleston Road are expected to be congested regardless of whether the project is implemented, Caltrain's environmental analysis indicates that they would be worse once electrification is implemented.
Because some of the project's impacts are considered "significant and unavoidable" under state law, Caltrain had to adopt a statement of overriding consideration as part of its approval of the Final Environmental Impact Report. The document states that the "unavoidable significant environmental effects of the PCEP are acceptable because specific benefits of the PCEP outweigh those effects."
The board quickly approved the report Thursday morning after hearing from about a dozen speakers. Some speakers, including bicycle advocates and representatives from business groups, urged the board to move ahead with the long-planned project. Others raised concerns about the specifics of the document.
Richard Hackmann, Palo Alto's project manager on rail issues, told the board that the city remains concerned about the unmitigated impacts that the project will have on Palo Alto.
"We believe there are partial or full mitigations at little or not cost to Palo Alto or Caltrain that can address unmitigated impacts that have surfaced in the last week, as we reviewed the EIR further," Hackmann said.
David Schonbrunn of the nonprofit Transportation Solutions Defense and Education Fund(TRANSDEF) criticized the project because of its connection with high-speed rail. About half of the funding for Caltrain's $1.5 billion project is coming from the California High Speed Rail Authority under an agreement between the two agencies.
Several speakers also raised concerns about Caltrain's decision to add to the environmental impact report an assertion that it is not bound by the California Environmental Quality Act. Rich Walters, a consultant who serves as Caltrain's project manager for the electrification project, reasserted that point during his brief presentation to the board Thursday. Walters said that the Surface Transportation Board has "made it clear that federal law can preempt local and state environmental laws, including CEQA (California Environmental Quality Act), in a recent statement they made."
The agency, he said, has gone through the entire CEQA process and staff has recommended that the mitigations in the environmental impact report be bound to state environmental laws. At the same time, he said Caltrain wants to "reserve the right" to claim the preemption of federal law if the report is challenged.
After speakers made their public comments, the board quickly voted to approve the report and the statement of overriding consideration, with board members Tom Nolan and Adrienne Tissier each noting that the vote was a long time coming.
"We've done a lot of hard work for this," said Tissier, who earlier in the meeting was elected as board chair. "This is a real milestone for us here."
Tissier also said she is sensitive to the "last minute" concerns and that Caltrain staff can have additional discussions with interested parties to address these concerns.
"You can always add mitigations," she said.
Comments
Cuesta Park
on Jan 8, 2015 at 4:24 pm
on Jan 8, 2015 at 4:24 pm
Will this really reduce pollutants to 3% of the present or put some of them where the power is generated??
Do we have enough power generated locally [I doubt it] or will we be building more power plants somewhere else??
Regardless, sounds good but would like more info.
Cuesta Park
on Jan 8, 2015 at 5:50 pm
on Jan 8, 2015 at 5:50 pm
Makes me wonder how near capacity the current commuter trains are. Longer trains and more of them are probably good. But how many years from now would they be desirable? Needed?
Rex Manor
on Jan 8, 2015 at 6:09 pm
on Jan 8, 2015 at 6:09 pm
Does this Caltrain electrification mean that we will FINALY AT SOME POINT have grade separations at Rengstorff @ Central Expressway AND AT Central Expressway @ Moffett/Castro. The traffic at these intersections is already bad. And the wait for a green light when trains pass is a long wait.
Jackson Park
on Jan 8, 2015 at 9:00 pm
on Jan 8, 2015 at 9:00 pm
@CopperC:
Many of the commute hour trains quickly reach standing room only capacity and various cyclists will recount how many times they have been denied entry because the bike cars were full.
Heck, if you have gone to a *single* weekend Giants game on Caltrain, you'd know the answer. Clearly, you rarely ride Caltrain. For a Sunday day game, I board NB801 at 10:50am at Mountain View, grabbing a seat. By the time it departs Redwood City, it is SRO.
Electrification removes the passenger-less diesel locomotive, adding more passenger capacity for the same length train.
Electrification also allows for shorter off-peak trains.
Remember, this is the way the rest of the industrialized world does it: Europe, Southeast Asia, etc.
Do you know how long Japan has had high-speed rail with an electric overhead catenary? *FIFTY* years.
I think Caltrain might be ready to join the 21st century, or Honshu, Japan circa 1965.
Old Mountain View
on Jan 8, 2015 at 10:36 pm
on Jan 8, 2015 at 10:36 pm
Will the updates to Caltrain allow us to run more frequent trains between Castro and San Antonio? I would love to see some sort of rapid transit between these two hotspots, expanded tracks along that stretch could do amazing things.
Jackson Park
on Jan 9, 2015 at 8:55 am
on Jan 9, 2015 at 8:55 am
@Localmotive?
Part of the electrification plan includes one more train per hour, so yes, frequency could increase, although we are very far away from seeing actual timetables and which stations would see additional service.
However, there is no plan at this time to create point-to-point rapid transit service.
Personally, I'm not convinced there is adequate demand to justify the additional expense to build such a line between Mountain View and San Antonio, as well as allocate resources (train, staff, etc.).
Now if Caltrain was hitting standing-room only specifically between the two stops frequently, then it would something up for consideration, but as a Caltrain rider myself, nothing I have seen on the train (i.e., vestibules) makes me believe that there is a large number of riders that board at Mountain View/San Antonio and get off at the other stop.
Old Mountain View
on Jan 9, 2015 at 12:11 pm
on Jan 9, 2015 at 12:11 pm
Higher residential density along El Camino + higher business density along El Camino. Makes more sense to hop on a bus at El Camino. Hopefully VTA will build out bus services there.
another community
on Jan 10, 2015 at 1:41 pm
on Jan 10, 2015 at 1:41 pm
The demand for CalTrain service is growing and will continue to grow. It's not necessary to look at as a way to get from San Antonio Center to downtown Mountain View. Consider that most trains do not stop at San Antonio now due to the time it takes the diesel train to get back up to speed. With electrification, more of the EXISTING trains will be able to serve the San Antonio Center area where the Merlone Geier project is in the midst of building two new huge office towers and a hotel. Not only that, but the old Safeway and adjacent strip mall has been the target of proposals for a large scale residential development.There is new development all over the area, and there is industrial land ripe for further development. The whole area there is exploding in density. There can be a lot more use made of the train stop there. There's an underpass for San Antonio Road so there is Zero disruption to auto traffic when the train stops there.
Not only that, but there is residential development existing at Carmel Terrace which is about as close to Cal Train as it is to El Camino. And Prometheus and others have additional residential development planned at various points centered between the Train tracks and El Camino Real, but along San Antonio Road.
However, not much of this increased use is going to be to reach Castro Street in Mountain View. Note that there used to (recently) be a stop of some trains at Rengstorff. That stop disrupted traffic and was discontinued mainly in order to speed up the travel time for the trains. If the city ever gets that crossing grade separated from Central Expressway, it would make sense to consider a train stop there again as well. Yet another location with vast new development going on, primarily residential...
Meanwhile, some day VTA will wake up and provide better cross service for people trying to reach the transit corridor of Cal Train from other parts of the city, including of course El Camino Real. That need is woefully neglected and private passenger automobiles are heavily relied upon by the residents of many areas, who also have no transit alternative to reach El Camino Real. There's virtually zero transit service along San Antonio Road at present and with all the new development something is bound to be done to address that. It's just as much a high development corridor as is ECR in the zoning plans at present, sanctioned by ABAG and friends.