Rod Diridon is a legend and visionary who has inspired me to work to get High Speed Rail in California done. Rod came to my place of employment recently to show his remarkable presentation on the California High Speed Rail system. This is the second time I have seen Rod give this presentation. What strikes me the most is just how far behind America is in relation to the clean transportation sector. Whether it is electrifying our current rail system, producing electric vehicles or implementing High Speed Rail, especially in one of our most populist states, we are followers instead of leaders.
Some Americans seem to love to run around bragging to everyone how we live in the “greatest Country in the world” but it’s usually these same braggadocios who insist on holding us back into the dark ages of coal and oil as our main sources of power and transportation.
I am in Taiwan now on business working with two suppliers whose facilities are 100 - 200 meters from Taiwan's HSR. Do you know what you hear when they go by at 300 km/h /186 mph? Nothing if you are inside the building and whoosh, if you’re standing out front. That's it! Whoosh! No blaring diesel horns, no ding, ding, ding of road crossing barriers, no violent shaking of the earth like what happens when Caltrains goes by, just a whoosh.
All of California's High Speed Rail system will be what's called "grade separated". That means the trains will not cause cross traffic to stop ever again! The trains will either go over or under all intersections. Brilliant! The only place they will stop is in beautiful new stations.
http://www.cahighspeedrail.ca.gov/
In addition, the existing rail corridor on the peninsula will accommodate both HSR and a "converted to all electric" Caltrain. Imagine that, complete elimination of the existing pollution bellowing behemoths Caltrain currently operates, to the nearly silent version, and High Speed Rail running along side of it in the same corridor.
There is one big problem though. The same people who stopped BART from coming down the peninsula 40 years ago are once again fighting to stop HSR. The difference now is that they aren’t only depriving the millions of people of San Francisco and the South Bay from using clean rapid transit, they are now using their weapons of backwardness and ignorance to keep the entire State of California from building a clean energy, clean transportation future. They are the only ones in the entire State taking legal action to stop High Speed Rail operating between two of Northern California's biggest cities, San Francisco and San Jose.
These cities are Atherton, Menlo Park and Palo Alto. My understanding is the majority of the folks living in these cities are for HSR and the Caltrain conversion, but there are a few very wealthy, very powerful, visionless, backward thinking people pulling out all the stops to ruin moving into the future for everyone in California.
Outside of complete and total disregard for their fellow Bay Area residents they steadfastly insist on keeping a noisy, dirty, diesel, inefficient, road blocking system in place. Why? All I can think of is, sheer ignorance and/or selfishness beyond imagination.
The new system will be cleaner, quieter, faster and more efficient. It will facilitate business growth in the Bay Area at levels not seen in 20 years. It will drastically reduce another one of the dirtiest forms of transportation, short hop air travel. It will reduce traffic on 101 and 280 running up and down the peninsula as well as far less traffic on Interstates 5 and 99.
When going to Southern California what appeals to you more, fighting the airports or the roadways or smoothly riding along High Speed Rail while visiting with your friends or family, reading a book or newspaper and getting to your destination in far less time than it takes to drive and even less time than it takes to fly when taking into consideration getting in and out of two airports.
So here is the challenge. Flood the cities of Atherton, Menlo Park and Palo Alto with letters and emails. Show up at their City Council meetings and make them answer these questions. Demand that they give us real answers for their stubbornness so the light of day can be fully shinned on their darker more selfish motives.
Being the eternal optimist, I know in my heart High Speed Rail in California will not be stopped. Not this time. This is too important to turn back the clock and watch the rest of the world continue to speed ahead without us. It’s time we lead again. It’s time we show that we are still capable of innovating and building and making things better for future generations.
