Central Valley & SF Peninsula Battle Over HSR Planning

Congresswoman Anna Eshoo, state Senator Joe Simitian, and new state assemblyman Richard Gordon, all representing the mid-Peninsula region, including cities that have sued the High Speed Rail Authority, have proposed a compromise solution known as 'blended rail' that allows the high speed rail to go through the corridor but avoid the disruption so many fear.

"This amounts to a bait-and-switch effort by certain interests to take money away from the high-speed rail system, and use it to cover shortfalls in funding the Caltrain commuter rail system on the San Francisco Peninsula," Merced Assemblywoman Cathleen Galgiani said in a news release. "It is highly suspect that the same few wealthy communities on the San Francisco Peninsula who want to stop the High Speed Rail project, would cynically work to divert the money to meet their existing obligations to the Caltrain system."

Galgiani is the author of the the $10 billion bond measure and voter initiative, Proposition 1A in 2008 that authorized the state's high speed rail project. Caltrain, lacking any dedicated funds, runs from Gilroy/San Jose to San Francisco and has encountered serious funding problems this year.

Thanks to Adina Levin/Friends of Caltrain