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Electrification of Caltrain
In its 1995 report, the San Mateo County Grand Jury recommended that local transit agencies shift their emphasis towards upgrading CalTrain. At the same time, the Grand Jury recommended halting efforts to extend BART to San Francisco airport, citing limited benefits and exorbitant cost.
Thus the Grand Jury concurs with Peninsula Rail 2000 and many concerned and potentially impacted individuals and groups of north San Mateo County and the Peninsula. The report has drawn fire from State Senator Quentin Kopp and county supervisors Mike Nevin and Tom Huening who also sit on the SamTrans board of directors. (See "BART-SFO: Wounded But Not Dead").
The Grand Jury report cited a $705 million cost estimate for a CalTrain upgrade to provide service frequencies similar to BART's between downtown San Francisco, SFO airport, and San Jose. They contrasted this with the $1.27 billion pricetag for the seven-mile BART extension.
The Grand Jury made some very pointed statements. For example: "The financial conditions under which SamTrans is planning to fund the BART-SFO extension are nebulous." These appear in the Findings section of the report.
The report catalogs a pattern of behavior by the SamTrans management and a majority of its Board. In addition, it identifies the Board of Supervisors as a responsible party. The pattern of behavior by SamTrans and the Board of Supervisors chronicled by the San Mateo County Grand Jury can be summarized as one of:
The report concludes with four recommendations:
This mid-year report has four pages of background about CalTrain, BART, and SamTrans followed by nine pages of Findings, ending with the four recommendations.
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Last updated: October 27, 1998
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