GILROY
– In response to a state plan that could route a 220-mph
passenger train through Henry Coe State Park, a beneficiary group
has proposed a new alternate route.
GILROY – In response to a state plan that could route a 220-mph passenger train through Henry Coe State Park, a beneficiary group has proposed a new alternate route.
In a letter to the California High-Speed Rail Authority, Advocates for Coe Park argued that building a train route through Coe Park would clearly violate state law.
“The construction and operation of a train is prohibited by law within a wilderness area,” the letter said. “In fact, all trail construction and maintenance within a wilderness area must be performed with hand tools. Even bicycles, which are considered as mechanized transportation, are prohibited in wilderness areas.”
Even if the legislature reclassified a Coe rail corridor to something other than wilderness, Coe Advocates argued that the state Public Resource Code prohibits improvements in state parks “that do not directly enhance the public’s enjoyment of the natural, scenic, cultural, or ecological values of the resource.”
The group does not oppose high-speed rail as a way to move California’s rapidly growing population between major cities – pitched as a cleaner, cheaper alternative to building more freeway lanes and airport gates – but not through Coe, the second-largest California state park.
“We’re not trying so much to support high-speed rail as we’re not trying to obstruct it,” Dennis Pinion of Morgan Hill, a Coe Advocates board member and the author of its official bullet-train response, said Tuesday. “We think that high-speed rail is fine, but that’s not something that we’ve really studied.”
Rather, Pinion said the group based its response on the notion of advising the state how to route the bullet train, should it be built.
Arguably the most controversial portion of the train’s route is its crossing of the Diablo Range between the Central and Santa Clara valleys. Two of five rail routes the Rail Authority proposed in January in its draft environmental impact report would run through Coe Park, partly through tunnels, between Merced and San Jose. Another option would bypass the park to the north, cutting instead through wild lands near Mount Hamilton. Two others would turn west south of Merced and tunnel through Pacheco Pass, possibly stopping in Gilroy, Morgan Hill or Los Banos between Fresno and San Jose.
“All of these proposed alignments severely impact areas that have been set aside for preservation and protection,” Coe Advocates said in its official response letter. “These areas also provide critical habitat for numerous plant and animal species.”
Therefore, the group is pitching a new “hybrid route” that would cross via Pacheco Pass but, like the options through Coe, would stop in Merced before turning west.
Pinion said this hybrid route would accomplish three goals:
• Satisfy a contingent in Merced that wants the bullet train to stop there on the way north to San Jose – and is therefore now pushing for the Coe Park routes.
• Lessen the amount of wetland impacted by the Rail Authority’s Pacheco Pass route.
• Bypass a possible new station on the Los Banos outskirts that critics say would invite sprawl and also impact more wetlands.
Pinion added that eliminating a Los Banos stop would increase the chance of a Gilroy stop.
Rail Authority Deputy Director Dan Leavitt declined to comment on Coe Advocates’ proposal, saying the state agency would wait until after August, the deadline for public comment on the draft EIR, before responding to any submissions.
“Once the public comment period is closed, we will respond to these comments, but at this point it’s premature,” he said.
After considering all comments, Leavitt said Rail Authority staff will make recommendations to the agency’s board some time between September and November.
