The California High Speed Rail Authority’s recent financial projections on the San Francisco to Los Angeles County rail connection could leverage more of Caltrain’s infrastructure, accelerating the need to secure funding for several grade separation projects along the Peninsula.
While a high-speed rail connection in Central Valley is already in the works, a recent HSR report highlighted the strong financial viability of connecting San Jose to Gilroy using Caltrain infrastructure. Because of the existing rail connection between San Francisco and San Jose, connecting the latter with Gilroy could then allow for a subsequent connection to Bakersfield and ultimately Palmdale in Los Angeles County. The report put estimates for such a connection around $87 billion and would be operational in 2038.
About 20% of revenue from the state’s cap-and-trade program has gone to the high-speed rail project. Caltrain has received both operating and capital funds from the program, including money for its electrification. But with federal funding in flux and the state still working on extending the cap-and-trade program past 2030, Caltrain hopes it can shore up not just operating funds but also critical infrastructure projects.
If the high-speed rail project from San Jose to Gilroy goes through, Board Member Pat Burt said that would also mean crucial grade separations projects up and down the Peninsula would need to quickly come to fruition.
“The dollars that are in this 15-year cap-and-trade timeframe are very small,” Burt said. “It basically might be a fraction of a grade separation.”
Over the last couple years, the agency has faced a number of hurdles trying to obtain accurate cost estimates and securing financing for some of its most critical grade separation and other infrastructure projects.
The long-standing grade separation project near Burlingame’s Broadway station — often considered the most dangerous rail crossing in the state — saw updated project estimates more than double from 2022, going from $316 million to $889 million as of 2025. The increase was due to a variety of factors, a large one being Caltrain’s inaccurate 2022 estimate, which was derived primarily from design, not construction, consultants. The cost has also increased due to the need to work around live electrified infrastructure, which was fully implemented in September 2024.
The price tag for repair work on the Guadalupe River Bridge came in over $60 million higher than originally anticipated.
“What we are seeing at state is an impetus to try to salvage the high-speed rail without any acknowledgment of the consequences for our system and the financial obligations we would have to avoid gridlock on the Peninsula and the safety issues throughout the corridors,” Burt said. “They are creating a massive unfunded liability that we’re facing as this goes forward, and this just hasn’t really been acknowledged by High-Speed Rail.”
(5) comments
If there is anything these estimators are good at, is low balling. This may under the direction of our oblivious politicians. Has anyone ever seen a project come in under budget? This is all designed to fool the voters, so whatever you believe, don't vote for any bond or other funding measures because they will come for more once, surprise, the estimate came in too low.
Going the SF route was always a flawed project, since SF is basically a Dead End.
The project should have used the Amtrak/UP tracks going to Oakland and improving the connection between OAK and SF with BART instead. HSR could even just end in San Jose - and then have BART or CALTRAIN make the connections to OAK and SF. This would prevent a lot of headaches and cost.
But eventually they want the SF project because then they can waste more money on a tunnel with little to no RCO. In that case suddenly you have two agencies competing for ridership with HSR and BART instead of two system complementing each other.
It's not a "dead end," it's where people are trying to get to. Ending in Oakland or San Jose wouldn't make sense when a plurality or even majority of riders want to reach SF.
In train speech it's a "Terminal Station" or dead end until there is a very expensive tunnel crossing the Bay towards Sacramento.
I don't think a plurality of riders wants to get to SF - it's a really small city with little to offer to people coming from LA. Maybe a few tourists, but most likely it's going to be businesses or maybe commuters using this.
And those riders want to get to San Jose and the Silicon Valley companies around it.
If the HSR makes too many stops in SJ, PA, RWC, SFO, SF - it's not going to be that high-speed anymore so it can only stop at maybe two important locations.
And Caltrain can't get the tunnel to SF transbay terminal going either. In which case the HSR is better off ending at SFO then at King and 4th.
Either way it's a lot of money San Mateo County needs to invest in order to watch HSR just speeding by.
Much cheaper scenario: SJ to OAK to Sacramento as that corridor exists already.
- one set of riders can take Caltrain from San Jose to Silicon Valley and can get out at any stop along the way, even SFO.
- another set of riders can take BART from Oakland to San Francisco and even SFO.
That makes good use of all systems and would avoid a lot of cost for grade separations that will never come and a tunnel that will be unpayable by the time they start planning.
Folks, don’t fall for this sob story pushed by transit officials. This is another article laying the way for another set of tax measures to take more of your hard-earned money to subsidize union workers in paying their ever-increasing salaries, pensions, and benefits. Vote NO on any tax measures looking to support transit or train-to-nowhere infrastructure.
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