REDWOOD CITY, Calif. — Sites for possible Redwood City stations on a new Dumbarton commuter rail corridor will be selected in early 2020, the San Mateo Daily Journal reports.
Efforts to revive the long-dormant former Southern Pacific route across San Francisco Bay, from Union City in the East Bay to Redwood City on the San Francisco peninsula, have been in progress since social media giant Facebook became involved in 2018 [see “Facebook could help revive former San Francisco Bay rail bridge,” Trains News Wire, June 15, 2018]. The line would pass within a few hundred feet of Facebook’s headquarters in Menlo Park.
Four potential Redwood City-area stations are under consideration, the newspaper reports: one near the Fair Oaks Health Center; near Marsh Road, where two possible sites are being reviewed; one at Redwood Junction, where the new line would join the existing Caltrain route; and one at Willow Road in Menlo Park. An East Palo Alto site near University Avenue is also being considered, based on requests from that community.
Winsome Bowen, head of regional transportation strategy at Facebook, told a neighborhood meeting in North Fair Oaks that specific station locations would be announced at community meetings early next year.
Thank you, Steve Hill, for meaningfully adding to my body of information about this line!
One system sounds great. Several regional systems that meet regional needs but cooperate, works better. BART has been the single largest impediment to good regional plnning over the past 30 years. SMART delayed for years, Dumbarton planning emasculated, interoperability with any other rail system in theU. S. destroyed. Modern rait transit delivers a ride as good as BART, at less build cost and lower operating cost. Dumbarton delivers a future interconnect to the Central Valleythe Cen
What about connections to other rail transit modes? Redwood City already has a Caltrain station, does it not?
It’s not the bay, its the people in Belle Haven and Fair Oaks who have lived next to a underused rail line for the last 25 years. It will now see several trains a day where none have moved. You know how that gets people worked up….and it is California after all, its where everyone is offended.
As far as Facebook, the housing crunch on the peninsula is real (albeit a little stupid if you ask me) and affordable housing is very far away. So many of the tech giants have resorted to hiring their own busing firms to get their employees in and out of the city. So it is in their best interest to help get more transit options into low cost areas of the metro.
I find it laughable that the marketplace seems to think original thinking only occurs in this area. I find it even more laughable that the venture capital firms think that anything “not here” is not worth investing in.
The stories of startups “not in california” who couldn’t get funded, then opening a mail box in San Jose suddenly having a great idea that VC wants to underwrite. It’s a long running joke in tech circles.
When Yahoo HQ in SFO had to reduce headcount, they were too chicken to actually lay anyone off, so they announced everyone had to come back into the office (even though they had absolutely no space for everyone)
Because employees had left the valley and moved out to the outer reaches (like Stockton, Modesto) because they no longer had to commute by working at home, obviously rejected that notion and simply quit. Which is exactly what Yahoo wanted in the first place. Well, it worked. They were successful in reducing headcount.
If the SFO Metro had more substantial transit options like New York or Chicago that reached the outer areas of the burbs, this wouldn’t have been an issue. Now they are playing catchup.
Facebook, Google and their likes are so desperate to stay in this area, they will do anything, even help pay for a train line to maintain status quo. When there is a large caliber of talent and space elsewhere in the country, why? That is what makes it so ridiculous.
The right of way from Redwood Jct (MP 26.2 on Caltrain) to Newark is owned by Samtrans (i.e. Caltrain). Caltrain has tried a couple times before to revive the line for east bay service. Now that Facebook is sitting at the table, perhaps they will take it seriously.
From the end of in service track (at Chilco Rd in Redwood City) to the end of ownership on the Newark side (where UP takes over) is about 6.7 miles. About 1730′ of the west approach to the Dumbarton Bridge is missing due to the fire mentioned previously. The total length of the bridge is about 7530′. What is left is mostly not bad, except for the 300′ swing span itself. That needs to be replaced, probably with a 150′ Bascule, unless the Coast Guard can be convinced that there is no navigational need to the south end of the bay and make it a fixed span.
There is also a 180′ swing span over part of the slat ponds to the east that has to be addressed also. It is only needed for the dredge that works the salt ponds. Again, the ponds will probably be abandoned, negating the need for the dredge so this swing span should be replaced with a fixed span.
All part of the research and planning i worked on while at Caltrain.
I think this could either be CalTrain and/or ACE service. CalTrain would be the preferred operator, since it is electrifying ans trains could all the way to San Francisco. It should run as far east as Fremont, for transfers from ACE. East of that it would duplicate ACE. Since Amtrak’s Capitol Corridor JPA is planning on moving to the westerly and more directly (Mumford?) Subdivision south of Oakland (from the Niles Subdivision), it will cross this proposed service. A transfer station should be built at the crossing.
This was to have been rebuilt over ten years ago, before the money was diverted to extending BART to San Jose, which delayed yet again.
Cool. Let get it done.
The bridge is missing 400 yards on the west end. It burned in 1998.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumbarton_Rail_Bridge
Is the bridge okay? I’m sure the commuter line doesn’t want to pay for a new bridge several miles long.
You guys sent me scrambling for a map. I don’t know the area (though I’ve been on this that or the other train). From the map it would seem a lot of traffic potential connecting the East Bay to Redwood City and Palo Alto, and Redwood City west to SanFran and East to San Jose. Does Facebook intend to pay for this? The capital cost and the operating costs seem insurmountable.
Having lived near that area for the first 25 odd years of my life(when the line was still active with freight traffic) and knowing the area relatively well…why there isn’t plans to have a station right next the very large Facebook campus I don’t know. As for putting one at Redwood Junction, that wouldn’t be prudent, just run into the main station in downtown R.C., and I didn’t realize that another transit authority was involved, since from the original idea way back when it was always going to be an extension of existing CalTrain service(they can go both railroad WB to San Francisco and EB to San Jose using the wye at Redwood City, but why do that and perhaps draw from those that work between Palo Alto and Sunnyvale that live in the East Bay and drive the Dumbarton mess every day.
Mister Ekren:
I agree that the various transit systems should be under one flag but that will be the Sunny Friday. Absent a dictum from higher authority (or is that Higher Authority) nobody would be willing to give up his private little fiefdom. So, how to do it?
Oh – and Mister Rice: You can put them all there (the NIMBYs, that is), as long as you know of some way to get the stench out of the fish afterward.
The above comments are genetic in nature and do not form the basis for an attorney/client relationship. They do not constitute legal advice. I am not your attorney. Leave no documents, no witness, and no incriminating evidence.
John Rice: Not to worry! How can you have NIMBYs in the middle of San Francisco Bay? I realize, however, that some fish may be disturbed.
The one huge downside in my opinion is the fact that this all going to happen under a new transit authority in the bay area full of transit authorities. It would much much better in my opinion if it would become part of Caltrains Peninsula service with plans to go all in with electrification for direct service from the lower East Bay/Newark into San Fran 4th street station. Instead, separate transit agency with more redundant overhead and paper pushers, separate rolling stock and maintenance facilities and therefore stopping well short of its potential & generating another transfer for commuters who don’t want to sit in their car on congested bridges and freeways..
ANNA and CHRIS – Way back when I had a neighbor Joe who worked the line at Chrysler Hamtramck Assembly (f/k/a “Dodge Main” or simply “Dodge”), the worst assembly plant in the world. He advised me how to identify a Dart built by Chrysler Canada at Piquette Avenue, Windsor, despite the fact that its Monroney Sticker would falsely state it was fabricated in Detroit. Buy the Canadian, Joe advised me.
So I drove to a Dodge dealer in Hamtramck and picked out a Canadian – built car which I named Horace E. Dodge with a 225 Slant Six. (I would only shop at the Dodge or Chrysler Plymouth dealers nearest to Chrysler Corporation HQ, then in Highland Park, Michigan, figuring out that Chrysler executives would bring their own problem children to those dealers for service.) The first thing I noticed, a block from the dealer, was that when Horace slowed or stopped, the body would groan, as if he was missing a weld or two. The second thing I noticed, a second block away, was that Horace was at his best driving in a straight line; he wasn’t designed to lean into a curve no matter how slowly.
Horace was my second Chrysler car. It took me several more Mopars over many years to realize I was buying junk. (Each one lasted just a few years.) By then I had a girlfriend who worked in a sensitive position at Highland Park HQ, not far from Lee Iacocca’s office. She was legally bound to absolute confidentiality but I could figure out what she wasn’t telling me:- that the corporation was on life support.
Mister Mortensen:
It was a black top-of-the-line 1964 Corvair Monza with an engine producing (on a good day) 102 screaming ponies, and a Slush’n’slide transmission, known locally as Den Flyvende Rulleskøjte, and guaranteed to do 0-60 in ten. Hours, that is…
Actually I used to commute between Pasadena and Palo Alto in that thing. I once did the trip north in a little over 5 hours, down I-5 and over Pacheco Pass.
The above remarks are genetic in nature and do not form the basis for an attorney/client relationship. They do not constitute legal advice. I am not your attorney. Who’s telling this lie anyway? You, or me?
Mister Rice:
Far as I know it’s just an architectural feature. Why? Who knows?
This line would be a great addition to bayarea transit and the right of way is already there and double track wide as well.
Can any local historians tell me if that center tunnel under the Dumbarton line bridge when its crosses the Bayshore Freeway was for some trolley/streetcar line?
Judging by the art deco on the bridge, it appears it was built by the SP around 1934 when the Bayshore was expanded..
If it was a Corvair going fast (can’t be true), someone would have called the cops about a speeding lawn mower.
Charles, It’s a straight shot up University to El Camino Real and the Stanford campus. It was a Corvair. If it ever happened.
Regarding the Dodge Dart. Yes, there was one but it was blue, had a 318, and we had long since concluded that the purpose of the body was to prevent the engine from dragging on the road. Remind me some time to tell you about the night the drug lab blew up.
AH
A great reason to railbank. If the NIMBY’s can be kept in check, most of the surrounding parcels on the peninsula are industrial.
ANNA – You mis-remembered the story from mumblety-mumble years ago. (Either that or you’re just plain lying!) It was a black Dodge Dart 225 Slant 6 or 318 V8. Couldn’t have been a black Corvair because at high speeds in urban curves and turns, the Corvair would have crashed butt end first!
The above comments are generic in nature but also God’s Honest Truth!