A representative with the California High-Speed Rail Authority announced at the Aug. 26 Rotary Club meeting that the organization partnered with the City of Gilroy to plan for the Garlic Capital’s very own station—preferably located downtown.
In July, the City received a $600,000 grant from the Authority and an additional $150,000 from the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority to help the City better plan for the station, according to Ricci Graham, Authority spokesperson. The City pitched in $80,000 from to aid planning efforts.
The proposed downtown station would be located near the intersection of Hecker Pass Highway and U.S. 101, based on preliminary designs presented in 2011 during the Gilroy High-Speed Train Station Visioning Process.
“The high speed station will serve as the catalyst for development and commercial and retail expansion downtown,” said Ben Tripousis, northern California regional director with the Authority. “We’re looking at providing a system that will ultimately provide a trip from the Transbay Terminal in downtown San Francisco to Los Angeles Union Station in under three hours. Really, it’s an opportunity to shrink the state.”
While contractors develop the rail system in the Central Valley—ground zero for the statewide effort—Gilroy officials will use the grant funding to help develop conceptual designs for the station and identify sites that would be feasible and environmentally sound. Other California cities, including Fresno and Merced, entered similar agreements with the Authority this year.
“We’re looking at completing the work in the Central Valley and working with local communities on developing stations in northern and southern California to move the program forward,” Tripousis said.
According to the regional director, the entire 800-mile high-speed rail system is necessary to circumvent growing congestion on California’s highways and cut back on pollution. Adding extra lanes, expanding major freeways and other roadway improvements would be vastly more expensive than the $68 billion project, Tripousis said.
“The state of California is expected to add the population of the state of New York in the next 30 to 40 years,” he said. “California has to find another way around congestion. We’re going to continue to grow and we have to find a way to address our mobility issues—not just from a traffic congestion standpoint, but to be able to economically sustain our businesses and give us the opportunity to remain the eighth largest economy in the world.”
Currently, the City is developing its General Plan—a process that must be completed every 10 years per state law. Senior Planner and General Plan Project Manager Stan Ketchum told the Dispatch that planning for high-speed rail is critical to Gilroy’s future and that the future may look brighter with a downtown station.
“High-speed rail really changes the whole nature of the community as far as transportation goes,” Ketchum said. “The project will bring a lot of people to downtown Gilroy and so we’re looking forward to a lot of spin-off opportunities economic development-wise.”
The General Plan is expected to take more than two years to finish—with City Council approval slated by 2015—and it’s headed by the General Plan Advisory Committee, comprised of 25 residents, active community members, developers and City officials. By the time the council approves the General Plan, only then will the Authority likely have come to a decision about where the Gilroy station will be, Tripousis explained.
Another proposed location for the Gilroy station is just east of the Premium Outlets, near the intersection of Leavesley Road and U.S. 101, as presented during the 2011 visioning process. Though the council expressed a preference for a downtown station, Tripousis says all options must be considered during the environmental review process.
“The Authority won’t select a preferred alignment and station location until the environmental review process is complete for the San Jose to Merced project section in roughly 2016,” Tripousis added. “The process will include significant community outreach and input before coming to a decision.”
During that process, a variety of potential impacts will be considered including minimizing impacts to environmental and natural resources, minimizing disruption to neighborhoods and communities and taking into consideration land use implications and construction feasibility.
“This is the next legacy project for California,” Tripousis said.
“We’re looking at providing a system that will ultimately provide a trip from the Transbay Terminal in downtown San Francisco to Los Angeles Union Station in under three hours. Really, it’s an opportunity to shrink the state.”
-Ben Tripousis, northern California regional director with the California High-Speed Rail Authority
