Cities from San Francisco to San Jose that want the state’s high-speed railroad hidden in tunnels would likely need to pay for the underground option themselves, rail authorities indicated Thursday.
The California High-Speed Rail Authority released its most in-depth Bay Area planning report to date Thursday at a crowded public meeting in San Jose. The document, called an alternatives analysis, declares that the agency would have enormous difficulty paying for expensive below-ground tracks, which at some points could quintuple the price.
The agency will continue to study the underground option to appease concerned residents and officials who have lobbied for the train to be “out of sight, out of mind” in their cities. But those communities would likely have to pay several hundred million dollars each for such a luxury.
“If they pull it off, it’ll be phenomenal,” said Bob Doty, head of the joint Caltrain-high-speed rail program and the report’s author. “But I got to be real. It’s a lot of money.”
The other, less-expensive options the engineers will study are street-level tracks and raised structures. In many areas, it will be necessary, for safety reasons, to run the 125-mph bullet trains on rail bridges, likely aerial viaducts, which are akin to narrow freeway overpasses and expected to be at least 18 feet tall.
Another option is a type of raised rail bridge called a berm. These solid structures are used at Caltrain crossings in places such as San Carlos and Belmont, but they have been ruled out in areas where drivers, pedestrians and bicyclists cross the tracks frequently.
The report, in producing track-cost estimates for the first time, explains that in many cases, digging tunnels or trenches for bullet trains would cost up to five times more than the rail authority has budgeted.
Take, for instance, the costs pegged for the four possible track alignments in a 2.9-mile stretch in northern Mountain View: Street-level tracks would cost $155 million, an aerial viaduct $344 million, an open trench $615 million and a tunnel a whopping $1.43 billion.
In San Jose, it would cost $248 million to run bullet trains on the one-mile stretch into the Diridon Station on a two-track aerial viaduct, compared with $383 million for a two-track tunnel with Caltrain remaining above ground.
The agency expects to have $5.1 billion for the section along the Caltrain tracks and doubts it will be able to get any more funding for the local section of the $43 billion San Francisco-to-Los Angeles railroad. So far it has only about one-fourth of its expected cash.
The track estimates include only construction costs and do not factor in the price of buying property around the Caltrain corridor to make room for two new bullet-train tracks. Project manager Tim Cobb said planners have yet to determine how expensive the property could be.
Rail officials suggested Thursday that cities wanting a tunnel — including Burlingame, San Mateo, Menlo Park, Atherton, Palo Alto and San Jose — could try to pay for it themselves, presumably through a ballot measure.
Doty noted that the scenario is not without precedent. He cited Berkeley residents’ 1966 vote to pass a tax measure paying for BART to run underground.
Palo Alto Mayor Pat Burt bristled at the idea, citing state environment laws passed since the Berkeley vote that put more of a burden on developers to ease impacts on communities.
Doty said high-speed rail officials will start meeting with city leaders immediately and urge them to consider cheaper options.
Many project critics had hoped for a tunnel because they thought it could reduce the number of homes and businesses subject to demolition. Underground tracks also promise to be quieter, to produce fewer vibrations and to be more aesthetically pleasing.
Cities in which residents cross the tracks frequently had also complained such an aboveground structure would divide their communities. In Palo Alto, the raised structure possibility has been called a “Berlin Wall.”
The rail authority board of directors adopted the report Thursday by a vote of 6-1, with Bay Area board member Quentin Kopp objecting. Kopp was displeased with a section of the report that eliminated the Beale Street station option for downtown San Francisco. Instead, the rail authority will use a joint station at the Transbay Terminal and the 4th and King Caltrain station.
The authority plans to use the Millbrae BART-Caltrain and San Jose Diridon stations as high-speed rail stops. Planners will study a potential fourth Peninsula stop at a Caltrain station in Redwood City, Palo Alto or Mountain View.
Engineers will recommend a final track alignment and station locations in their next report, which is due in December. After the board certifies that study and secures enough funding to begin construction, it will start building. Construction is slated for the fall of 2012, and the first bullet trains are expected to run by 2020.
Bay Area News Group Staff Writer Jessica Bernstein-Wax contributed to this report. Contact Mike Rosenberg at 650-348-4324.