San Francisco Prop H Text

VICTORY!

Proposition H: Downtown Caltrain Station

YES votes received: 123,623 …69.30% of total
NO votes received: 54,751 …30.60% of total

As appeared on the ballot in San Francisco on November 1999:


The City Attorney (City and County of San Francisco) has prepared the following title and summary of the chief purpose and points of the proposed measure:

Downtown Caltrain Station; Ordinance
 

Caltrain is a publicly owned and operated commuter railroad line which runs between San Jose and a San Francisco terminal at 4th and Townsend Streets.

This measure is an ordinance that would make it City law to extend the Caltrain line to a new or rebuilt regional transit station in San Francisco to be located on the site of the Transbay Terminal at First and Mission Streets. The City would be directed to use an underground tunnel whenever feasible for the extension of the Caltrain line from the current station to the Transbay Terminal. The City would be prohibited from taking any actions that would conflict with extending Caltrain to downtown San Francisco, including allowing conflicting use or development of the Transbay Terminal or the proposed extension right-of-way.

Any City contracts for this project would have to include provisions rewarding contractors for the timely and safe completion of project work, and setting a goal of providing at least 10 percent of the new construction jobs generated by the project to recent welfare recipients.

The City would be required to pursue electrification of the entire Caltrain line, to explore with other counties the feasibility of having a substantial portion of the manufacturing of any new equipment for an electrified Caltrain line performed in the Bay Area, and to consider with other officials and agencies the addition of new Caltrain stops in Bayview/Hunters Point and Visitacion Valley. City officials would be directed to take all appropriate actions to generate the revenue needed for the Caltrain extension, and to pursue funding according to a schedule of priorities included in the ordinance.


Ordinance Providing for the Extension of Caltrain to a Downtown Station

(full text)

Be it ordained by the People of the City and County of San Francisco that:

Traffic congestion on highways and surface streets ranks near the top of San Francisco’s environmental and economic challenges: Bay Area traffic congestion increased by over 30% from 1995 to 1996, wasting countless hours of people’s time and significantly increasing emissions of air pollutants including volatile organic compounds, nitrogen oxide, dioxin and particulate matter, which harm human health and the environment;

Significant new commercial and residential development is planned for the South of Market area and Mission Bay, including construction of a new ballpark, the Pacific Exchange, and a new University of California campus;

Without strengthened regional and local transit service, such development will dramatically increase traffic congestion, overwhelm MUNI capacity, and decrease the quality of life in the South of Market area;

The Caltrain commuter rail line from San Jose and Gilroy, which stops at every major city along the Peninsula, currently ends at 4th and Townsend Streets in San Francisco, over a mile from employment centers in downtown San Francisco, making it less attractive to daily commuters travelling in both directions;

The most efficient and economical means of reducing auto traffic between the Peninsula and San Francisco is to:

a) convert the Caltrain line from diesel to electric propulsion compatible with high speed rail;

b) extend the Caltrain rail line to a regional transit station near downtown; and

c) operate Caltrain at BART levels of speed, comfort, and frequency of service;

San Mateo and Santa Clara counties have already committed the majority of financing required to complete these projects: as a responsible partner in regional transportation planning, San Francisco should identify its fair share of federal, state, or local financing to accomplish these goals;

The California High Speed Rail Commission has selected San Francisco as the preferred destination for a bullet train from Los Angeles to the Bay Area, which would provide rail service between downtown Los Angeles and downtown San Francisco in under three hours;

A world-class regional transit station, connecting Caltrain, MUNI, AC Transit, Golden Gate Transit, and other intercity bus lines with high-speed rail should be located within easy walking distance of downtown and should have a direct connection to BART and MUNI Metro; and

Such a regional transit station will help maintain San Francisco’s role as the economic and cultural center of Northern California into the twenty-first century.

SECTION 1. It shall be and is the law of the city and county that the Caltrain commuter rail line, operated by the Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board or any successor agency thereto, be extended downtown to a regional intermodal transit station. To implement such law, the Mayor, the Board of Supervisors, and all city officers and agencies, including Redevelopment Agency Commissioners, with any authority over any aspect of the extension of Caltrain downtown or the Transbay land use planning and redevelopment effort (hereinafter referred to as “all relevant city officers and agencies”) shall adopt such further ordinances and resolutions and take all other actions as necessary to effectuate the prompt extension of Caltrain downtown to said station, and to protect right-of-way as identified in the Joint Powers Board’s draft Downtown Extension Environmental Impact Report from any development that would preclude the extension or increase its costs.

SECTION 2. As part of the extension of Caltrain downtown, a new or rebuilt terminal shall be constructed on the present site of the Transbay Transit Terminal serving Caltrain, regional and intercity bus lines, MUNI, and high speed rail, and having a convenient connection to BART and MUNI Metro. Said terminal shall be so designed and constructed as to:

(a) yield the highest possible transit use by residents and commuters;

(b) afford senior citizens, persons with disabilities, and other commuters with the most convenient connections between regional bus lines, MUNI, Caltrain, and BART;

(c) produce the highest density of foot traffic, in conjunction with foot traffic from the Caltrain station, to accommodate mixed use retail development;

(d) provide the lowest possible operating costs for MUNI and regional public bus lines; and

(e) result in the lowest feasible combined costs for construction of the bus terminal and the Caltrain station, without sacrificing the aesthetic qualities of the terminal and station and their interface with surrounding development.

SECTION 3. To eliminate diesel locomotive air pollution and minimize noise impacts on South of Market neighbors, the Mayor, the Board of Supervisors, and all relevant city officers and agencies shall pursue electrification of the Caltrain line from San Francisco to San Jose prior to or concurrent with the extension of Caltrain downtown. To ensure minimal inconvenience to businesses and residents South of Market Street during construction, the project shall, whenever feasible, employ tunnel boring techniques to extend Caltrain downtown.

SECTION 4. Any construction contracts related to extension of Caltrain downtown signed by the City and County of San Francisco shall include provisions to reward contractors for the timely and safe completion of project work within the City and County of San Francisco.

SECTION 5. The Mayor, the Board of Supervisors, and all relevant city officers and agencies shall negotiate construction contract and subcontract provisions with a goal of providing at least 10% of the new construction jobs resulting from the Caltrain downtown extension project to recent welfare recipients. The Mayor’s Office of Economic Development and the Department of Human Services shall coordinate, in conjunction with other city departments and private, non profit social service agencies, any job training, employment recruitment, and related programs which are deemed necessary to achieve and maintain said goal. Whenever possible, any such job training and/or employment recruitment programs shall be focused within San Francisco neighborhoods with the highest rates of unemployment and welfare enrollment.

SECTION 6. The Mayor, the Board of Supervisors, and all relevant city officers and agencies shall coordinate with elected officials and other officers and agencies representing San Mateo and Santa Clara counties to explore the feasibility and cost-efficiency of performing a substantial portion of the manufacture and/or assembly of any new equipment or retrofits for an electrified Caltrain commuter rail line in the Bay Area, so that the jobs and tax-revenue resulting from such manufacture and/or assembly benefit Bay Area residents.

SECTION 7. The Mayor, the Board of Supervisors, the San Francisco Transportation Authority, and all relevant city officers and agencies shall coordinate with the Caltrain Joint Powers Board to explore the costs, feasibility, and benefits of reconfiguring and/or adding Caltrain station stops within San Francisco so as to provide easier Caltrain access to residents in Bayview/Hunter’s Point and Visitacion Valley who commute to downtown San Francisco and/or the Peninsula.

SECTION 8. The Mayor, the Board of Supervisors, the San Francisco Transportation Authority, and all relevant city officers and agencies shall take all appropriate actions to generate the revenue necessary to finance the Caltrain extension downtown and station construction referred to herein. Funding options to be pursued shall include, but shall not be limited to, the following, in the following order of priority:

(a) an application to secure funding through the federal Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act;

(b) an application to secure a portion of highway funding through the flexible funding provisions of the federal Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act;

(c) designation of the Caltrain extension as a priority mitigation project for the demolition of the Embarcadero freeway and use of a portion of the proceeds from the sale of excess Embarcadero freeway and Terminal Separator land, pursuant to the California Streets and Highways Code (Chapter 498 of the statutes of 1991);

(d) a portion of rental income and/or the local tax-increment from transit-oriented, mixed-use joint development at the site of the existing Transbay Transit Terminal and/or in the immediate vicinity thereof;

(e) a portion of Bay Bridge toll revenues;

(f) a portion of mitigation funds earmarked for the Bay Bridge retrofit; and/or

(g) a portion of any future federal, state, regional, or local revenues which become available for transportation projects.

SECTION 9. The Mayor, the Board of Supervisors, and all relevant city officers and agencies are hereby forbidden from taking any actions that would conflict with the extension of Caltrain to downtown San Francisco, including, but not limited to, pursuing any uses for the present Transbay Terminal site that conflict with Section 2, or undertaking any other land use planning or development efforts that would conflict with the intent of this legislation.

SECTION 10. If any word, phrase, sentence, paragraph or section of this ordinance, or application thereof to any person or circumstance, is held to be invalid, the remaining parts of this ordinance, including their application to other persons or circumstances, shall not be affected thereby and shall continue in full force and effect. To this end, the parts of this ordinance and the applications thereof shall be deemed severable, and to have been enacted separately.