A Word About This Site

Important Note: This site is designed to be a one stop shopping place for information relevant to the HSR project, the potential impacts to our communities and how to participate in the process. Since this is an all volunteer effort, a lack of funding relegates us to using the freeby sites. With no perfect fit available, this site is being treated like a hybrid blog/website. Like a blog, it is not stagnant, but like a website, information is categorized. Therefore one should not treat it as a blog by always looking for only the latest entry, yet periodically refer back to older posts for updated information. To make it easier, HSR-PREP has a newsletter designed to be used in conjunction with this site. If you wish to be notified of new information appearing on the site, it is recommended that you sign up for the HSR-PREP Newsletter. Another way is to create an RSS link on your homepage.

Spread the word. Be informed. Get involved.

Spread the word. Be informed. Get involved. If you have any issues at all with the high speed rail project as it exists, if you say and do nothing, it means you agree 100%. We are all busy in our lives. This cannot be used as an excuse later. If you have issues, you must participate in the process or forever hold your peace. Call, email or write your legislators. It takes 15 minutes using their websites. Participate in the public input opportunities with the High Speed Rail Authority (HSRA). But don't wait.
Spread the word. Be informed. Get involved.

PCC (Peninsula Cities Consortium)

The Peninsula Cities Consortium (PCC). Six Peninsula cities - Burlingame, Belmont, Palo Alto, Menlo Park and Atherton and Brisbane (new 10/10) - joined forces to share resources and ideas for protecting their respective city's interests as they pertain to HSR. They also hoped a collective voice would have more impact than that from individual cities. Some other cities have chosen not to join as they are concerned they they will be perceived as non-cooperative/combatant by the HSRA if they associate with this consortium as some of the cities (not the PCC) have sued the HSRA.

In an attempt to respond intelligently during the various scoping periods following the HSRA's Environmental Impact Reports (EIR) and Alternatives Analysis (AA), the PCC has repeatedly submitted pertinent questions to the Authority without response. See the list of questions here (to follow).

The PCC took their strongest stance yet in a formal letter asking the reset button be pushed on this project. See this article in the "Sacramento Bee" Capital Alert section.

In response the Bay Area Council writes a letter to the PCC members calling the the PCC's policies 'obstructionist and dangerous' essentially saying it will be the PCC's fault if this doesn't get built and there are no jobs because of it.

Stations

TransBay Terminal in San Francisco. See a link here.

HSR Pro or Con?

PRO.

HSRA Board Member Rod Diridon on HSR. See this July 9, 2010 Vimeo interview.

CALPIRG Executive Summary of June 29, 2010. Read the summary here.

View America 2050 Director Petra Todorovich's presentation on the benefits of high-speed rail to regional economies and where high-speed rail works best here. The presentation was given at the conference of the U.S. High-Speed Rail Association in Hollywood, California on June 17, 2010.

Dedicated Freight Corridors & High Speed Rail India’s Ultra Low Carbon Mega Rail Projects Anjali Goyal Executive Director Finance (Budget), Ministry of Railways, India

CON. (See also the business plan section)

Congressional Research Service: High Speed Rail (HSR) in the United States, December 8, 2009. While including the arguments for HSR, this report raises many unanswered questions and concerns, and is therefore largely critical of a national HSR system. Read the full report here.

Wendall Cox June 25, 2010 presentation. See this slide show here.

Broad Support? An interesting poll by the Gilroy Dispatch from June 2010 indicates anything but broad support: 79% favor abandoning the project while 21% say press on.

Underground Preferred. A poll taken on this this site in April 2010 showed those in favor of an underground solution at 97% (76% for full bore tunnel), those for a raised viaduct at 1% (0% for a berm), and those undecided at 2%.

The CATO Institute.