Environmental review OK’d; high-speed rail set to move forward

The Board of Directors approved the documents Thursday, a milestone toward construction in the region. The decision moves high-speed rail closer to the final design and preconstruction aspects. Boris Lipkin, Northern California Regional director, said the authority is applying for funding from the federal government for work, with funding timelines and acquisitions tied to the start of construction.

The San Jose-to-San Francisco section will have three stops at the San Jose Diridon Station, the Millbrae transit center and the Fourth and King Street Caltrain station. The environmental document also calls for the construction of a light maintenance facility on the east side of the Caltrain corridor in Brisbane and improvements for safety and speed in the region. The Millbrae stop would expand the city’s existing station that serves BART and Caltrain riders, with the project sharing Caltrain tracks throughout the Peninsula. Lipkin said the authority still needed to talk with Millbrae about mitigation measures to figure out how the city could accommodate both high-speed rail and transit-oriented development.

However, the authority’s decision has angered the city of Millbrae, which has conflicting development plans for the Millbrae Station than the one outlined in the environmental impact report.

Millbrae City Manager Tom Williams said the City Council would meet in a closed session next week to discuss possible litigation around the authority’s approved environmental document. Millbrae wants to use the area for two 10 story and a nine story building with 488 apartments and nearly 300,000 square feet of office space to go between the tracks and El Camino Real. However, the environmental impact report calls for the space instead include multiple surface-level parking lots to serve the high-speed station. The two sides are in an ongoing legal dispute over an 11,000-square-foot parcel needed to facilitate a stop for the state’s high-speed rail project, but the city said it needs it for a road to serve the apartment and office building.

Williams criticized the environmental documents for not thoroughly analyzing alternatives, like the Millbrae suggestion of having the station built underground. Williams said the plan turned a blind eye to Millbrae and went against planning principles of transit-oriented development, particularly as the state has emphasized more transit-oriented housing.

“There’s a much better solution,” Williams said.

The overall project calls for a 500 mile system between San Francisco and Anaheim in phase one, with potential for extensions to Sacramento and San Diego. The project started in 2008 with a nearly $10 billion bond measure, but cost increases have led to a steep price tag increase with funding needs still unidentified. Construction of a 119 mile stretch between Madera and Wasco in the Central Valley is on track to be the project’s first completed section in the next year.

curtis@smdailyjournal.com

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