NIMBYs vs. Common Sense: California’s High Speed Rail

California is close to having a high speed rail (HSR) train between LA and the Bay Area.  Unfortunately, NIMBYs in Palo Alto, Menlo Park, and Atherton are trying to scuttle this plan to get us off of Southwest planes and into high speed trains when shuttling between these two huge population centers.

  Despite the benefits of having a modern train network linking these two metropolitan areas, and assurances that these trains would be quieter than the diesel-powered CalTrain locomotives that serve the route between Gilroy and San Francisco, residents in this affluent area are hell-bent on scuttling HSR.

  It’s funny—I guess it’s okay to have tracks going through low income urban areas or farmland, but if you’re interfering with affluent suburbanites, all bets are off.  Folks in these areas claim that a “Berlin Wall” will scar their town (never mind that US-101 already does that), and the noise will change their “way of life” (a favorite catch phrase that no one seems to be able to define).

  Unfortunately, local politicians are pandering to this crowd.  Egged on by their constituents, many of whom have deep pockets, US Rep. Anna Eshoo and CA State Senator Joe Simitian look like they are going to cave in to their noisy constituents—both are asking for more studies and more hearings . . . and they are even raising the possibility of a Silicon Valley version of a “big dig”, a tunnel several miles long through which the train would run underground.

  What?  A costly tunnel so that some people won’t be inconvenienced?  Well, this is the same area that turned down BART almost forty years ago, and Bay Area residents can see the results on US-101, I-280, and even CA-85.  Never mind the fact that the HSR will reduce driving and air transport, therefore lowering emissions . . . and by the way, help modernize a state that desperately needs better mass transit.

  I really hope Eshoo and Simitian don’t cave in.  But based on the buzz I’m hearing and reading, I’m fearful.