Posted by Martin Engel, a resident of another community, on Apr 14, 2012 at 5:14 pm

The High-Speed Rail Authority and Caltrain are brilliant. Not at designing great rail transit for California, but brilliant at snookering the public, including all of us.

When the CHSRA threatened to build a four-track elevated viaduct, those of us along the Caltrain corridor became all upset and for good reason; it would wreak havoc along the Peninsula, through 17 towns and cities. It was really bad news.

So, those clever rascals, including Simitian, Eshoo and Gordon said, wait. We will ask for only two tracks, not four and no elevated viaducts. We will call this the “blended system.” That way, high-speed rail and Caltrain will share two tracks. Won’t that be much better?

Wow, what an improvement over the disaster with which we were threatened. Now it would only be a little disaster, not a huge one. They would electrify and that’s all. No harm done.

Wrong!

Please note that now we are fighting over this. We want the rail authority to not look at four track viaducts any longer. We want that “blended system.”

They won! We are now busy fighting FOR high-speed rail on the corridor. “Blended”guarantees a HSR foot-print on the corridor.

The only reason the rail authority and Caltrain will agree to the “blended” system is because it is temporary; that is, they will do this on an interim basis until additional funding materializes from the federal government.

The real reason they are not going to build the four track viaducts is because they don't have the money anyhow. But, when they do get more funds, watch out; here come those four track viaducts. And those are exactly what both the rail authority and Caltrain always wanted.

Of course, they are not telling us that.

And, instead of telling HSR to go to hell and never appear, in any form, on the corridor, we are now actually seeking it. How stupid is that?!