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Uploaded: Wednesday, November 4, 2009, 3:04 PM
Updated: Thursday, November 5, 2009, 8:55 AM

Event to focus on high-speed-rail outreach
Expert in 'context sensitive solutions' to explain ways for community to get involved in process

by Gennady Sheyner
Palo Alto Online Staff

Posted by TAKE ACTION!!!!!, a member of the Gunn High School community, on Nov 4, 2009 at 4:15 pm

MAKE THIS TRACK GO AROUND PALO ALTO!!!!!!!! I DONT WANT NO MORE OF MY FRIENDS HURLING THEMSELVES ON TRAIN TRACKS

Posted by Darwin, a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood, on Nov 4, 2009 at 4:34 pm

The HSR tracks would be safer than the current ones...

Posted by Jerry, a resident of the Downtown North neighborhood, on Nov 4, 2009 at 6:00 pm

The HSR tracks will be completely fenced off and separated from public streets. HSR is the only practical way to remove all the current Caltrain road crossings (converting them all to tunnels or overpasses). There are no funding sources other than HSR anywhere on the horizon.

Posted by Dan, a resident of Menlo Park, on Nov 4, 2009 at 8:11 pm

It's in the best interest of Palo Alto to cooperate with HSR because it's coming. All the young people are embracing it and at this point it is inevitable. Palo Alto better get it's act together and lobby for a HSR or lose it and still have the line running through it without a stop.

Posted by Jay Tulock, a resident of another community, on Nov 5, 2009 at 2:24 am

A not even 1/4 funded multi billion dollar project is not necessarily being built at all. It is not inevitable, it does not have to go throug Palo Alto. Context senstive solutions are consultant speak for how to fool the public and divide the opposition and make them 'feel' involved until they are run over by the project. Do not buy the lies. Unite and reverse the funding by supporting an initiative to revesre proposition 1A and cut off the liar's funding. It worked in Florida, it will work in California.

Posted by neighbor, a resident of the Greenmeadow neighborhood, on Nov 5, 2009 at 11:10 am

Jay Tulock -- what do you suggest as the best way for the average citizen to help efforts against routing this through Palo Alto or lobbying for undergrounding?

Posted by Evan, a resident of the Crescent Park neighborhood, on Nov 5, 2009 at 11:13 am

Yes, HSR should go around Palo Alto. That's a great idea, because then...

- Caltrain will continue as is. Noisy, slow, polluting, holding up traffic and making it easy for people to wander onto the tracks. Very safe.

- While the rest of California starts taking high speed rail and making it easy to get around on transit, traffic continues to pile up in Palo Alto

- We miss the chance to have a high-speed rail station right in downtown Palo Alto, increasing real estate values and ensuring Palo Alto will be a destination for years to come.

Yes. What a wonderful idea. Keep high speed rail away!

Posted by Evan, a resident of the Crescent Park neighborhood, on Nov 5, 2009 at 11:14 am

Jay. If you're so against this project, please — tell me your vision for how I, my kids and my neighbors should get around this city, region and state in the coming decades? What's your vision if it doesn't include high speed rail?

Posted by susan, a resident of the Fairmeadow neighborhood, on Nov 5, 2009 at 11:18 am

How to those of us who do want to move forward with transit options, even in our back yard, make a larger roar than those arguing against it?

The assumption we have all been duped and just need to scream a little louder and it will go away is not correct.

Many of us want High Speed Rail and the corresponding benefits!

Posted by Neighbor, a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood, on Nov 5, 2009 at 12:24 pm

What Benefits? Loss of homes, divided cities, more dense transit housing, higher taxes and higher California deficit due to having to subsidize HSR because no rail system in the world runs without government subsidies. This will not a solution to local traffic problems. People will have to drive to a station in Palo Alto to hop on the train thus generating more traffic in and around the area.

Posted by Evan, a resident of the Crescent Park neighborhood, on Nov 5, 2009 at 2:46 pm

What benefits you ask? That's easy.

- More integrated communities (no more trains running through the middle of streets/intersections

- Safer (no more open access to train tracks)

- Faster commuting

- Quieter (no more horns! wooo!)

- Cleaner (no more diesel being spewed in the air)

- Inexpensive, fast, direct trips to Central/Southern California right from Palo Alto

- Higher real estate values

- Transit-oriented development

- More local transit, which will not only spring up naturally (due to increased demand) but is also part of the Prop 1A monies

- Better traffic connections locally, as we get the opporunity to redesign some of palo alto's major east-west intersections

Anything else?

You mentioned that HSR systems don't run without government subsidies. Not only is that not true (Amtrak's NEC usually runs in the green, and many HSR systems around the world do the same, like SNCF in France: Web Link), but when was the last time highway 101 made a profit? By all means, fill me in.

Posted by WEVOTEDYES, a resident of Another Palo Alto neighborhood, on Nov 6, 2009 at 8:05 am

WE passed 1A and that majority want HSR and the safe grade crossing free streets and quite electric trains..the naysayers need to stop with the "bad" HSR as it will inprove the Caltrain ROW

Jay whats with you always ranting against this plan??? or is it

Richard Tomolach?

Posted by Mel, a resident of the Esther Clark Park neighborhood, on Nov 9, 2009 at 11:45 pm

I like the idea of undergrounding the RR tracks. Before I "lobby" for it, where can I learn more about additional building expense, and potential of land freed up above ground. What is happening with this idea?

Posted by enough, a resident of the Crescent Park neighborhood, on Nov 10, 2009 at 7:59 am

Wow, the HSR lobbyists are back in force! This HSR project is a boondoggle of immense proportions, and all the misinformation being spewed (real estate values up?!? city better integrated?!? faster commute?!? quieter?!?) don't make it so. If the benefits were so obvious, then why did the CHSRA just spend $9 million to hire a PR firm to promote the project and squelch opposition?

Most residents are unwitting pawns in this unprecedented effort to make a small handful of rich people even richer. For us who live here, the bottom line is a lot of pain for infinitessimal gain.