The Dumbarton Rail Project Walks

My favorite Patch Editor, Ms. (Notice the tilde on the letter n. I just learned how to do that.), has just written about the City of Menlo Park voting unanimously to approve the city's recommendation to build a train station for the Dumbarton Rail Project.

Like the Mummy that Walks, the Undead Living, or the Unliving Dead -- you get what I mean --  the Dumbarton Rail Project just won't go away. It keeps getting revived, only to be left yet again as a fading shadow.

It's back, this time for good reason. The city of Menlo Park has received $300K in grant money. Do I need to go on? Do you need to know more than that? OK.

The purpose of the grant is to do a study. We already know that studies are what our Administration does best of all; that is, get grants and do studies. The good thing about studies is that they cost a lot of money, but don't require any decisions or actions.

But, let's say, just to keep this conversation going over a drink or two, that Caltrain does assemble the cash to run this one-track Toonerville Trolley over the Dumbarton Trestle. (Note alliteration here.) To build the train station -- they are calling it the more au courante "Transit Station" (Train stations are so yesterday.) -- will cost around $1 million, they say. I say it will be much more, but since that money doesn't exist, it's an academic point, really.

Needless to say, our Administration, I won't name names, loves the idea of building things, regardless of whether we need them, or whether they are actually harmful or not. The reason is they love to spend OPM, other peoples' money.

After all, they are in the grantsman business, holding meetings, churning out proposals, supervising consultants, ticking projects off their time-sheets; you know, keeping busy.

So, what's the problem?

The Caltrain Joint Powers Board has been tinkering with this Dumbarton rail idea for decades. It's really a stupid idea.

Why? Because the Dumbarton Rail Trestle, which connects the Peninsula with the East Bay with one track, has a long history of disasters and what's left of it isn't salvageable. They even sent divers down to check the foundation several years ago and discovered that these concrete pillars are disintegrating, with rusted out 'rebar', at the same time they are embedded in ground that is highly subject to liquefaction in an earthquake. Wooden parts of this trestle were burned not so long ago and some of this rusted out trestle dates back over 100 years.  (I love to say, trestle. Trestle.)

Furthermore, the Coast Guard, which has legal jurisdiction over the Bay itself, had denied permission to rebuilt this trestle, and requires a new rail bridge that would sweep over the shipping lane high enough for cargo ships to pass under.  The possible cost of such a bridge will be in the billions. 

And yes, it would be a "Bridge to Nowhere!" (Caltrain has no business doing business in the East Bay. They can't even cover the costs [get subsidies] of doing business on the Peninsula.)

Oh, did I mention that the Coast Guard wants the remains of this trestle removed as a shipping hazard because it straddles the shipping channel. As you may know, most of the South Bay is extremely shallow and the channel has been maintained by the Corps of Engineers.

All of which is to say, there isn't a snow-ball's chance in hell that this train will ever become operable across the Bay. Under, yes. Over, yes, but not on this trestle.  Therefore, without a Dumbarton Rail Bridge, there can be no Dumbarton Rail Project, can there? And, then what is the purpose of this transit station of which our city council approves unanimously? And, without the need for a transit station, there's no need to write a proposal for one million dollars.  And, without that, we really don't need a $300K study, do we? (What you just read is called reverse engineering.)

You would think that if I can get this information, so can our city staff. But, why would they? So that they become ineligible for those $300K? Don't be silly. And our unanimous city council knows squat about any of this anyhow, except for that $300K and whatever else the Administration has told them.