How many votes will $16 million buy for Peninsula Politicians?

The California High Speed Rail Authority has been granted $16 million for Caltrain to develop Positive Train Control systems (PTC).  They really don't need to do that expensive development, since there already exists a universally accepted PTC system, one which the CHSRA has said they would use.

Let's be clear here, this is not about PTC.  So what is it about?

This is about locking in the Caltrain corridor, plain and simple!  They are playing a winning chess game with us on the Peninsula. We who oppose HSR are being out-maneuvered. 

It's a back-door, sneaky way to promote HSR on the Caltrain corridor.  Make no mistake about that. The funding goes through the CHSRA, not directly to Caltrain. It is not really about Caltrain safety anyhow.  It is about helping the CHSRA mark the Caltrain corridor as its territory, the way an alpha dog does.

Will this PTC also include Union Pacific?  Have they been asked about this? Do Caltrain/CHSRA even care?

This "grant" ignores the fact that there is no certified EIS/EIR for the Caltrain corridor, either for Caltrain's electrification or for any kind of high-speed rail.  I am not aware that the Caltrain corridor has been definitively identified as the certified "preferred option" with an identified alignment either as a CEQA program EIS/EIR or a project EIS/EIR.  

Furthermore, under normal circumstances, funding PTC development, or any signalling/control before any basic rail development decisions have been made would be considered bizarre. This grant by-passes all those as yet unmet legally required steps before the CHSRA can declare its legal right to run its trains on the Caltrain corridor.

Which PTC version will be developed on the Corridor with this grant?  "C-BOSS", which Caltrain dreams of creating out of whole cloth, or the off-the-shelf "ERTMS" version intended for use by the CHSRA? The question is important since the brand new PTC system Caltrain wants is tons more expensive than the one that is now universally deployed among most railroad systems.

You can get a little techie background from Clem's blog,  which he wrote in March, 2010.

This is not just about Eshoo, it's about Simitian/Eshoo/Gordon (SEG). And also Speier. And many other Democrats. And, it's all the Democratic Peninsula local politicians who have made themselves so prominent and have been sucking up to SEG and defining themselves as Friends of Caltrain.  (I don't have to name their names. You know who they are!)

This plays right into the Caltrain/HSR game-book.  Those of us who had hoped for a termination of the Caltrain/HSR MOU can forget about it. (And remember, I'm a Democrat, and have become ashamed of my Party.)

I need to get this off my chest.  All those who have been so vocal on the Peninsula about HSR and Caltrain fall into two categories: those who, fundamentally, want high-speed rail, albeit under their particular conditions -- and those who don't want high-speed rail under any conditions.  Again, they know who they are.  I can safely include as HSR supporters my own City Council for their "courageous" Resolution of support for the SEG agenda, and thereby support for HSR on the corridor.

From my intolerant perspective, those who want HSR on the corridor in some form or other, and want to preserve Caltrain regardless of its glorious mismanagement, are part of the problem; not part of the solution.

That will become ever more apparent.  For my money, there is no broad spectrum about HSR. If you're not against it, you're for it. Those who don't reject high-speed rail in California, by default support it.  And that's reprehensible.  HSR's issues and problems have been amply detailed from a large number of sources.  At some point, it will become necessary to stand up and be counted either way.