California's high-speed rail project sparks fear among some on the SF Peninsula

Voters warmly embraced Proposition 1A and the idea of bringing a bullet train system to the traffic-choked Golden State last November.

But since the election, life for the California High-Speed Rail Authority has been anything but easy.

Ten months later, with the glow of the initiative's remarkable electoral success beginning to fade, authority board members and staff are finding the actual process of preparing to build the $40 billion, 800-mile system is far more difficult than selling the dream of the sleek, fast trains.

With $9.9 billion in bond sales authorized by voters, the authority has suffered fits and starts as it begins to identify and study the paths where the trains will actually run.

Observers say the authority's somewhat flat-footed efforts in explaining how the system will work have allowed its critics and the "not-in-my-backyard" contingent to largely overshadow the community discussion to date.

Already, communities along certain proposed train routes – fearing their towns will be adversely affected – have complained that the authority often acts in an arrogant and commanding manner.

Residents in certain cities along the legs of the system are just now beginning to express their concerns. But those voices pale in comparison to the chorus of criticism coming from the San Francisco Peninsula area.

Jeffrey Barker, a CHSRA deputy director, acknowledged some of the recent communication difficulties.

"What this tells me is that we haven't done a good enough job in reaching out to them," Barker said. "It tells me we need to step up our efforts in terms of educating the public of what can and cannot be built."

Most importantly, Barker said, the system's environmental impact studies and reviews are still being conducted. Once those studies are completed, the best and most optimal solutions for the environment, the community and the rail system will be selected.

Yoriko Kishimoto, chair of the so-called Peninsula Cities Consortium, an organization representing the cities of Atherton, Belmont, Burlingame, Menlo Park, Palo Alto and Redwood City, said she agrees with Barker's self-assessment.

"Just because most of us supported Prop. 1A last year doesn't mean that we're willing to give away the store, and it doesn't mean that we will allow this project to diminish the quality of life in our cities," said Kishimoto, a member of the Palo Alto City Council and an announced candidate for the 21st Assembly District in 2010.

She added that some of the authority's board members have acted "arrogantly" in response to community criticisms.

The $9.9 billion bond sale Californians authorized when they approved the proposition last fall is designed to kick-start a massive public-private partnership to build the statewide rail system.

Laboring in relative anonymity since its creation in 1996, the CHSRA promises to eventually whisk travelers from San Francisco to Los Angeles in about 2.5 hours with a fare under $75.

While the sleek blue-and-yellow electric trains would travel at a modest 125 mph through the peninsula and other more congested areas, they are designed to travel as fast as 220 mph in straight, flat areas.

The main area of controversy has centered on the so-called "alignment" or paths the CHSRA system would take leaving its San Francisco terminus.

One route has the trains traversing eastward over the Altamont Pass to get to the Central Valley.

The other goes south down the peninsula and over the valley via the Pacheco Pass. The latter path was selected because it would cause the least amount of damage to the environment, federal railroad and environmental officials said.

But the selection of the peninsula-Pacheco Pass route immediately set off howls of protests by local residents and city officials in the consortium.

Fueling this were fears that some of the authority's planned elevated tracks along the Caltrain right of way would physically divide the communities.

The authority has also come under legal fire. One lawsuit by the cities Atherton and Menlo Park sought to overturn the selection of the peninsula-Pacheco Pass route. Another, filed by a Menlo Park man, seeks to block any construction until right-of-way issues with the Union Pacific Railroad on tracks south of San Jose are resolved.

The project's up- and downsides have also stimulated an unusual amount of resident interest, Kishimoto noted.

Forums, scoping sessions and workshops have repeatedly attracted standing-room-only crowds. One "teach-in" event held earlier this month drew more than 250 attendees, she said.

Kishimoto said she appreciated the authority's efforts to smooth local feathers by recently agreeing to adopt a so-called "Context Sensitive Solutions" approach to its planning efforts on the peninsula.

CSS is a well known design and decision-making technique sought by the consortium that forces all parties to carefully balance the need to efficiently and safely move – in this case – high speed trains with other issues such as quality of life, the environment and historic preservation.

Authority board member Quentin L. Kopp said he welcomes spirited civil public discussion of the CHSRA and its mission.

But Kopp, a former state lawmaker and retired Superior Court judge who has been largely credited with leading Prop. 1A's victory, says he has grown tired of some critics, who he believes will say and do anything to stop the ambitious transportation project.

Kopp pointed to the "myth" that peninsula cities will face nothing but "Berlin Wall"-like conditions when the CHSRA's tracks are finally installed.

"Sure, there will be some areas with vertical walls, but there will also be instances where we will depress roadways underneath the tracks. In other cases, we will need to build streets so that they span over our tracks. And yet in other places we will have to lift the tracks over streets," Kopp said. "The reality is that our public outreach and public education efforts are in my estimation about 10 months behind where they should be. We need to catch up and quickly."

One effort to help the CHSRA catch up on that front recently crashed and burned when authority board members killed the awarding of a $9 million public relations contract to a Sacramento-based firm.

Board members said they lacked sufficient information on the finalists, including a staff-recommended firm with close ties to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The board subsequently ordered its staff to start the contract process over from scratch – a decision that will delay the arrival of additional public affairs help to the authority by months.

This story was jointly published by The Sacramento Bee on Sunday, Sept. 20, 2009. You may also read it here.