High Speed Rail still on track, says representative

Despite three recent court rulings viewed by some as strikes against the California High-Speed Rail Authority, the $68 billion project is still steaming along locally in Gilroy and statewide, according to a representative with the group.
Ben Tripousis, northern regional director with the CHSRA, says he’s working with City staff to better plan the proposed station in downtown Gilroy through a $600,000 grant the City will likely receive by Jan. 1. Based on preliminary designs presented in 2011 during the Gilroy High-Speed Train Station Visioning Process, the proposed downtown station would be located near the intersection of Hecker Pass Highway and U.S. 101.
“Gilroy has been terrific in terms of partnering with us on the development of the station,” Tripousis said. “We’re developing an agreement and estimating a timeline to ensure it’s in the budget.”
Another proposed location for the Gilroy station is just east of the Premium Outlets, near the intersection of Leavesley Road and U.S. 101, as presented during the 2011 visioning process. And although City Council has expressed a preference for a downtown station, Tripousis says all options will be considered during the environmental review.
During that process, a variety of potential impacts will be considered. This includes minimizing impacts to environmental and natural resources; minimizing disruption to neighborhoods and communities; and taking into consideration land use implications and construction feasibility.
“We believe that the locally preferred option is probably the way we’d ultimately go and we’d certainly prefer to go,” Tripousis added. “We’re partnering with City staff to get them the resources to do that planning and we continue to do that on a regular basis.”
As the City is currently developing its General Plan, a process that must be completed every 10 years per state law, Senior Planner and General Plan Project Manager Stan Ketchum says planning for high-speed rail is critical to Gilroy’s future.
“High-speed rail really changes the whole nature of the community as far as transportation goes,” Ketchum said. “The project will bring a lot of people to downtown Gilroy and so we’re looking forward to a lot of spin-off opportunities economic development-wise.”
And with riders potentially frequenting downtown business and staying in town to visit Gilroy once the trains are running 20 or more years from now, he estimates it will have a “significant” effect on Gilroy as a whole.
“The General Plan is all about the future of the city,” Ketchum added. “We’ll do our best to foresee what some of those changes will be – but we have to await the CHSRA’s decisions.”
The General Plan is expected to take more than two years to finish – with City Council approval slated by 2015 – and it’s headed by a group known as the General Plan Advisory Committee, comprised of 25 residents, active community members, developers and City officials. But by the time City Council approves the General Plan, only then will the CHSRA likely have come to a decision about where the Gilroy station will be, according to Tripousis.
“The Authority won’t select a preferred alignment and station location until the environmental review process is complete for the San Jose to Merced project section in roughly 2016,” Tripousis added. “The process will include significant community outreach and input before coming to a decision.”
Ketchum is confident that if the CHSRA hasn’t decided on the Gilroy station’s location by then, the City can surely plan for it during the next General Plan process.
The statewide high-speed rail system, according to documents provided during the Gilroy High-Speed Train Station Visioning Process, are forecasted to carry up to 100 million passengers each year as early as 2035. The 800-mile system will link the Bay area, the Central Valley and southern California together through 24 stations, all with an expected travel time of 160 minutes.
“We’re talking about development in and around the downtowns of all of our stations, increasing densities in the downtown cities and allowing for greater economic development,” Tripousis said.