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-Keith Pelczarski
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Cause for concern with California's High Speed Rail project?
This one is for all the Californians in the house.
Last November, while we were all busy voting for change and stuff, voters also approved proposition 1A to issue almost $10 billion in bonds to fund the initial stage of a high-speed railway that could cost upwards of $40, perhaps as much as $80 billion dollars. When the election results came in, I was bummed that voters had signed us up for more debt to be paid from the state's general fund (I voted against the measure).
Now that more of the particulars are coming to light, I'm becoming increasingly anxious about what might actually get built. You see, the grounds of GoNutty.com Central Global World Headquarters abut the Caltrain tracks that run up the peninsula from San Jose to San Francisco. There's talk around town about what might happen with the tracks and such, and some of it sounds grim. Like a 15 foot wall of concrete to separate the tracks from the grade. I've also heard a much more enticing proposal to run the train through a tunnel.
For its part, The California High Speed Rail Authority site is long on glossy concept stuff, but short of specifics of what this project might mean to those of us who neighbor the tracks. Palo Alto Weekly has used a lot of ink on the high speed rail project, and there's a Yahoo group for Palo Altans concerned about High Speed Rail.
There are a number of meetings scheduled in the next couple of weeks for Palo Alto residents who are concerned about the potential impacts of the project. The first is tomorrow, Tuesday February 17th at 7 p.m. It's a meeting with city representatives and will be held at conference room A of the PAUSD office at 25 Churchill Ave.
There's another meeting scheduled for Thursday, February 26th at 7 p.m. to talk with city representatives AND folks from the High Speed Rail Authority. That one will be held at the Mitchell Park Community Center at 3800 Middlefield Road.
Finally, the Palo Alto city council meeting on March 2nd at 7 p.m. at City Hall will include High Speed Rail on the agenda. There's even a march to City Hall that evening, starting at Lytton Plaza at 6 p.m.
It sounds like the window for public comment on this project is scheduled to close pretty soon (March 6th), so if you have questions/comments/concerns about the project, now is the time.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled nuttiness, already in progress....
:: Keith 20:39 [link] :: ::