HomeMy WebLinkAbout2010-09-07 City Council Agenda Packet HSR City Council Committee
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Members Special Meeting
Larry Klein – Chair Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Pat Burt 4:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.
Nancy Shepherd City Council Conference Room
Gail Price Civic Center
250 Hamilton Avenue
Palo Alto, CA
Agenda
1. Public Comment
2. Discussion of Draft High Speed Rail ‐ Economic Development Analysis
(Continued from September 2, 2010)
3. Updates and Informational Items (Continued from September 2, 2010)
Contract budget update
Legislative update
Legislative services update
Property value analysis Request for Qualifications (RFQ) released
4. Discussion of draft letter from Mayor Pat Burt to Roelof Van Ark, Chief
Executive Officer, California High Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA)
(Continued from September 2, 2010)
ATTACHMENT PUBLIC COMMENT
5. Future Meetings and Agendas
September
6. Adjournment
DRAFT
September xx, 2010
Roelof van Ark, Chief Executive Officer
California High Speed Rail Authority
925 L Street, Suite 1425
Sacramento, Califomia 95814
Dear Mr. van Ark:
Thank you for taking the time to come down and visit with Councilmember Larry Klein, myself,
and City staff to discuss the proposed High Speed Rail (HSR) line in Palo Alto. We appreciate
your time and consideration.
As mentioned during our tour and at the subsequent face-to-face meeting we had afterwards here
at City Hall, the City of Palo Alto prefers the trench option versus other alternatives currently
under consideration by the California High Speed Rail AuthOrity (CHSRA). We believe the
trench option provides the least damaging impacts to our community. This option, based on the
currently available information, appears to have fewer impacts on the residential and commercial
properties along the corridor. In addition, this option offers the City, in limited areas, the potential
to create new pedestrian and other connections between the west and east sides of the City~
As communicated during our meeting, the City of Palo Alto passed a previous resolution in which
the City Council took unanimous action supporting the passage of Proposition 1A based on
representations provided by Mr. Rod Diridon. Since that time, the City has diligently worked to
obtain accurate information about both the CHSRA and Caltrain plans for the corridor. For the
record, the City of Palo Alto has taken no official position since the passage of Proposition 1A,
either in favor or against the specific proposals to come from the CHSRA.
As a City, we have made significant resources available to assist us as policymakers in
understanding what is being proposed by the CHSRA and have evaluated the potential impacts
on the City of Palo Alto. We have done this in partnership with the Peninsula Cities Consortium
(PCC), the City of Mountain View, and neighborhood and community organizations.
We have worked cooperatively and diligently with the CHSRA to secure the necessary
information so we as policymakers can make informed decisions about HSR in Palo Alto. The
PCC has also taken similar action. We have regularly participated in the Policymaker Working
Group (PWG) and the Technical Working Group (TWG) meetings to respond to CHSRA reports,
proposals, and questions. As have many of the PCC cities, Palo Alto formed a City Council HSR
Committee, which includes myself, to review HSR reports and related information in depth so as
to provide quality information to the full Palo Alto City Council on HSR. This Committee has
regularly and conSistently reached out in a collaborative manner to the CHSRA, Caltrain,
Samtrans, VT A, and other related groups to gather information necessary to evaluate the CHSRA
alternatives under review.
While there remain many outstanding issues associated with HSR on the Peninsula, the City of
Palo Alto continues to be committed to working cooperatively with the CHSRA and other
interested groups to facilitate solutions that meet the needs of the CHSRA and the City of Palo
Alto. For example, we acknowledge the project may include phased implementation of rail
corridor construction over time such as grade separating some crossings in the initial phases and
others later.
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II ...!I
We encourage you and the CHSRA to do the following in the near term: We ask you to please
initiate action to activate the peer review committee referenced in the authorizing legislation.
Based on our discussion it appears you agree that having others review and challenge engineers
and engineering study assumptions are important to the process. We applaud you for this
approach as all of us want to ensure that the information upon which important policy decisions
are made is accurate and correct. This committee has yet to be formed and we believe it could
help smooth the process and improve communication between the CHSRA and the communities
along the Peninsula.
In addition, we also ask you to sit down with the University of California Berkeley Institute of
Transportation Studies (UCBITS) staff to review the recently published rail corridor ridership
study. As you may have seen, the UCBITS report called into question many of the CHSRA
ridership numbers. Whether you agree or not with the conclusions reached by the UCBITS,
ridership numbers should have a significant impact on the ultimate HSR rail configuration and
associated track options.
Formation of the peer review committee, getting accurate ridership numbers, and continuing our
work with the CHSRA and others serves to increase transparency, legitimacy and creditability to
the HSR project. Every major infrastructure project ever built in California had these three
components. The City of Palo Alto is committed to a process that ensures these values for a
potential HSR line on the Peninsula. We look forward to continuing to work with you and your
team on this project.
Sincerely yours,
Mayor Pat Burt
City of Palo Alto
c: Palo Alto City Council
City Council, City of Atherton
City Council, City of Belmont
City Council, City of Burlingame
City Council, City of Menlo Park
Board of Supervisors, County of Santa Clara
Board of Supervisors, County of San Mateo