Caltrain Electrification (San Jose, San Mateo, Mountain View: 2014, construction, living)

[cardinal2007]

Caltrain electrification gets court boost: Court of Appeal ruling allows for high-speed rail bond sales, local modernization project to benefit - - San Mateo Daily Journal

Caltrain electrification gets court boost: Court of Appeal ruling allows for high-speed rail bond sales, local modernization project to benefit

With $750 million hanging on the California High-Speed Rail Authority’s ability to sell its voter-approved bonds, a project to electrify Caltrain — still in its environmental review stage — will benefit from a recent state Court of Appeal ruling giving the authority that go-ahead.

Improvements to the local tracks hinge on the authority’s ability to fund the state’s first $68 billion bullet train that was stalled by two previous lower court’s rulings that its funding plan was substantially different than what voters approved in 2008.

Although it’s reliant on the controversial state transit project, Caltrain is in the process of paving the way for construction through finalizing its environmental impact report and gathering community input.

“High-speed rail was certainly going to have a lot of challenges, that’s typical in a major infrastructure project,” said Caltrain Communications Manager Jayme Ackemann. “We’re confident they have a good path for moving forward, but we’re going to continue on our path and watch as things move through the court system.”

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Looks like the electrification will be happening, and if the timeline holds this should be done and ready in 5 years. This will mean faster and more frequent service for Caltrain. Personally I'm looking forward to the improvements, but I may be biased since I'm moving to downtown San Jose and currently working in downtown Mountain View.

[darkeconomist]

This is great news. Caltrain is of high importance to the peninsula--I'd say it's vital to the economy--yet doesn't get the support it needs or deserves.

[cardinal2007]

VTA has put a priority on getting BART and at $6-7B they don't have 300-400M to spare to improve Caltrain, so they didn't want to fund Caltrain, SamTrans really doesn't have a lot of money, and SF doesn't really want to pay that much so people can commute into SF instead of living there, none of them want to be the one that puts in more money than the others either. Now that the state needs the line improved before HSR is built we are finally getting some overdue work on the line. Really ended up needing the state to put a carrot in front of people, but it is getting done.