High Speed Rail
What a romantic concept – to be able to get on a fast train in Millbrae and arrive in comfort and style in LA two or three hours later. However, as many of you know, the means by which HSR might come through Burlingame could be enormously damaging – the least expensive method and one that is still in the Environmental Impact Report is to create an elevated structure on the Caltrain corridor that would be the equivalent of building an elevated 6 to 8 lane cement freeway, bisecting our City in deeply harmful and ugly ways. This is the very type of freeway that San Francisco was so pleased to get rid of on their bayfront, yet they and others are happy for Peninsula communities to be subject to them. It feels like Robert Moses all over again. The Council has said repeatedly and forcefully that this cannot be allowed to happen, that the line must run underground, but we are not at all sanguine that the Authority is listening or cares.
I must tell you that in a private capacity, I have also been working with a group of businessmen, investors and retired bankers examining the financial plans of the HSR system. Sadly, the Plan is just full of holes. You have no doubt seen that cost estimates have rocketed to $100 Billion, but what is often missed is that this $100 Billion buys only about half the system we were promised in 2008; gone are the lines to San Diego or Sacramento. More important, the funding for this system is nowhere available, which leads to the inescapable conclusion that the State of California will have to pay for it with debt. Not only is that bad for our budgets, but it may “crowd out” debt for other important repair work to our levees, roads and commuter rail. Plus, it seems to us that HSR may well require perennial operating subsidies. I just don’t think this is a good investment for California, nice as it is. As I said in an open letter, I think we would get a far greater “return on investment” elsewhere, including by investing in our own schools, universities, entrepreneurs and companies and the services that they can create.
