Here's a reminder for Bay Area Mid-Peninsula residents. Menlo Park is hosting one of the frequent Alternatives Analysis meetings/workshops on Tuesday, June 1, in Burgess Recreation Center.

If you are a Menlo Park resident, have you received a green card notice about this meeting from the city?

Can't find this meeting on the city web site? Hmmmm.

Here are some issues for you to consider:

Although the rail corridor passes through seventeen cities, each city is going through its own alternatives analysis exercise. Why? Because that's the way the rail authority keeps the lid on us. What do I mean? Although the rail corridor is continuous and rail changes (up/down, left/right) must be very gradual, the rail authority guys are 'shopping' each town to ask for what they want as a rail alignment.

Then, when the rail authority makes its final decisions, they will tell us that they could only build what works continuously through many towns, since the tracks can't be an amusement park ride. In short, we are being scammed.

Our minds can't get past our city borders. And that is a very bad thing.

I have pleaded with our three contiguous cities -- Atherton, Menlo Park and Palo Alto -- to come together to agree upon an alignment, and then insist on it to the rail authority. There have already been many indicators that deep-bore tunneling is the preferred choice. So, why not make that the official alignment preference of our three cities and present that to the rail engineers?

No? You have a better idea that serves your town best?

Is it that we are all so much smarter and have such better ideas than everyone else, that we refuse to even participate in this discussion?

The Parsons Brinckerhoff and HNTB guys must be laughing their heads off about our being too smart for our own good.

Failing our willingness to formulate an agreed-upon alignment, we are going to have the rail authority build us what nobody wants.

And we will have only ourselves to blame.

Martin