It is Earth Day, Friday, April 22, 2022. I am attending the excellent Gilroy Chamber Legislative Summit held every year. Rep. Zoe Lofgren is at the podium talking about the Infrastructure bill, and announces, proudly, that funds have been allocated to add an HOV lane to Highway 101 from Cochrane to south of Gilroy. Not one word about electrifying Caltrain!
I was so upset that I could hardly sit still. Then our Morgan Hill mayor, who is also our Representative on the VTA board, showed up an hour late, and I left. He has no vision for South County’s ongoing gridlock solutions, or dealing with climate change! Let’s have more cars spewing exhaust into our valley!
The State is pouring billions into High Speed Rail in the valley, where population is sparse to say the least, and may never be finished because of lack of funding. The $9 billion already being spent has given us nothing but bad management, delays and huge cost overruns! The South County region is one of the fastest growing areas in the state, yet all we have is an old dirty diesel train that runs three times in the morning and afternoon, and no weekend service.
The problem I hear for not even discussing electrification is a huge Catch 22: Low ridership. No one that commutes wants to deal with a schedule that does not work, and when arriving at Diridon, commuters cannot find timely connections to where they need to go. Electrify Caltrain and run trains every 20 minutes during commute hours. Have connections that make sense upon arrival at Diridon.
At least consider doing both at the same time! With construction on Highway 101, our living commuter nightmare will only get worse and we will have another lane of stop and go traffic when completed.
Electrifying Caltrain will be difficult and requires hard work, but remember what JFK said about traveling into space, years ago? “We do these things, not because they are easy; we do these things because they are hard.”
We need transportation and climate experts on our 21 agency boards, not part time elected officials with no vision for the future!
Swanee Edwards
Morgan Hill
