GILROY
– City Councilman Bob Dillon took a vitriolic stand Monday
against a 220-mph train that could stop in Gilroy on its route
between Los Angeles and San Francisco.
GILROY – City Councilman Bob Dillon took a vitriolic stand Monday against a 220-mph train that could stop in Gilroy on its route between Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Dillon was the Council’s lone dissenter as Mayor Al Pinheiro asked city staff to look into the plans of the California High-Speed Rail Authority, insofar as they could affect Gilroy. Instead of research, Dillon said he wanted the city to publicly oppose the bullet train.
“This is the time to drive a stake through this project’s heart,” Dillon told his fellow councilmen. “This is a boondoggle. … It will cost twice as much (as state officials are projecting). … The environmental design will be a nightmare. … The state of California can’t afford it.
“I say not only no, but ‘Hell no.’ ”
The Council had just heard a presentation on the project’s merits by the High-Speed Rail Authority’s deputy director, Dan Leavitt, prompting Dillon to comment.
“I resent someone coming in here from the state of California, which has stolen more than $16 million from this city,” Dillon said.
In response, Leavitt reminded the Council that city staff had invited him to come and speak at the public study session.
The electric-powered bullet trains would cost about $30 billion to establish, most of which would be publicly funded. A $10 billion bond to begin construction is on state ballots for this November, but legislators are planning to delay this vote to 2006.
The trains would get riders from San Francisco to Los Angeles in two and a half hours – or from Gilroy to Los Angeles in an hour and 45 minutes – reaching speeds of 220 mph in rural areas and 125 in cities. Later phases would extend lines to Sacramento and San Diego.
The route is mostly set, except for a mountain crossing between the Bay Area and the Central Valley. It could go through Pacheco Pass, stop in Gilroy and continue up the Union Pacific train track to San Jose, according to a draft environmental impact report the High-Speed Rail Authority released in January. Another Pacheco Pass option would bypass Gilroy, perhaps stopping instead in Morgan Hill.
This bypass worries Rita McCarty, who along with her husband has run a 40-acre walnut orchard northeast of Gilroy since 1974, and she fears the bypass route would cut through her property. She’d prefer it stopped in Gilroy.
“I think they should disrupt the fewest amount of people,” she said.
The train also could forego Pacheco Pass and cross the Diablo Range to the north, possibly tunneling through Henry Coe State Park or through undeveloped lands north of the park. Environmentalists have found these two options abhorrent, but Leavitt said such a route would cut 25 minutes of travel time between the Bay Area and points south.
Some, including the Sierra Club, want the Rail Authority to reconsider a route it eliminated that would approach the Bay Area at Fremont along Interstate 580 and cross the bay by bridge, with spur lines from Fremont to San Jose and Oakland.
The City Council has not yet taken a position on the bullet train, although former Mayor Tom Springer has criticized it personally. City Administrator Jay Baksa said city officials had thought the idea was about to be scrapped, but recent progress has made it seem more like a reality.
Outside City Hall after the study session, Councilman Russ Valiquette said he would like to see the bullet train work – especially with a Gilroy stop.
“If the state can pull it off, more power to them,” Valiquette said.
Dillon, outside with Valiquette, repeated his criticism, comparing the California bullet train to infamously over-budget projects like BART-to-San Jose, Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority light rail and Boston’s “Big Dig.” Even if voters approve the bullet train, Dillon said he wouldn’t want it to stop in Gilroy.
Leavitt said California’s population – 36 million people last year – will rise to 59 million by 2040, mostly due to births. The current network of highways and airways is insufficient to serve this quantity of people, he said, but the bullet train would meet the need.
“Already California’s highways are the most congested in the nation,” he said, and the San Francisco-Los Angeles air route “is not only the most heavily congested air corridor in this country; it’s probably the most heavily congested air corridor in the world.”
The state could meet the need by widening highways and adding 90 new air gates and five new runways, Leavitt said, but this would be two to three times as expensive as the bullet train. It would also create more air pollution, use more energy and create more suburban sprawl, as opposed to concentrated development expected around high-speed rail stations, Leavitt added.
