The Battle Over The Transbay Terminal

"What's clear is the battle between the TJPA and CHRSA is as much about the personalities running the authorities and their obvious distrust and dislike for each other as it is about the engineering numbers. The impasse became public in January, at an MTC commission meeting, when the CHRSA projected it would need capacity at the Transbay Terminal for twelve trains per hour, up from four trains per hour that had been cleared in environmental review.

Supervisor Chris Daly, an MTC Commissioner and TJPA Board Member, called the announcement a "complete and total blindside" and "single A baseball."

According to TJPA spokesperson Adam Alberti, they heard about the new numbers in a private meeting only a few days prior. CHRSA Executive Director Mehdi Morshed said they were presented in their business plan as early as November, 2008 (PDF). Alberti said a business plan is not an operational plan, and didn't provide a rationale to substantiate the need to run so many trains. Morshed said they had delivered their draft operational plan to TJPA, MTC, and Caltrain several weeks ago. Alberti called the CHRSA document a fiscal plan that has very little in operational data, not sufficient to justify engineering a second level to the train box."