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Politics & Government

South San Francisco Considers Joining New High Speed Rail Group

The San Mateo County Rail Corridor Partnership will lobby Rail Authority while distancing itself from a preexisting group's lawsuit.

The South San Francisco city council will consider whether to join a new alliance of San Mateo County cities created to lobby the High Speed Rail Authority – in a fashion that is not limited by a preexisting lawsuit against the agency – at its meeting on Wednesday.

Recently, four Peninsula cities – San Mateo, Redwood City, Millbrae and Burlingame – formed the San Mateo County Rail Corridor Partnership in an effort to consolidate and unify communications with state and federal authorities regarding high speed rail on the Peninsula.

The new group may get other recruits as well: Brisbane, Belmont and Foster City attended the group's meeting on March 9 and have showed interest in joining, according to San Mateo Public Works Director Larry Patterson.

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This is not the first time local cities have banded together to address the Rail Authority as a group: The Peninsula Cities Consortium (PCC), composed of Menlo Park, Atherton, Palo Alto, Burlingame, Belmont and Brisbane, formed in 2009 with a similar mission.

Late last year, however, some of those cities  against the agency, claiming the Rail Authority did not fully review the potential environmental impact of running high speed trains along the Caltrain corridor through the Peninsula.

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Patterson said San Mateo leaders had reservations over how that lawsuit could sour relations, and decided to stake a claim in the new group's formation rather than join the PCC.

"My city council members were concerned that having a lawsuit in place changes the nature of communications we can have," said Patterson. "We preferred to have a more open communication."

"The lawsuit may be a distraction," he said.

South San Francisco Mayor Kevin Mullin said South San Francisco doesn't face the same issues as the cities in the Peninsula Cities Consortium.

"Our issues with high speed rail are very different than the issues confronting some of the cities in the south county," Mullin said. "If you look at the alignment of the Caltrain corridor, there’s not the proximity to residential areas that you have in the south county. You’re not seeing a level of resident concerns that you would see in the south county."

Mullin supports high speed rail, but said South San Francisco needs to assure the project won't impede plans to revamp the Caltrain station. 

Burlingame Mayor Terry Nagle represents her city in the Peninsula Cities Consortium and the San Mateo County Rail Corridor Partnership. She said the new group formed in part because of a discussion Peninsula city government members had with U.S. Reps. Jackie Speier and Anna Eshoo.

Last fall, Eshoo and Speier reportedly told representatives of the cities in the newly formed group that they should "get their act together" if they hope to receive federal funding for the rail project.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood had told Speier and Eshoo that "he heard cities on the Peninsula were bickering, and he was not going to give any money until we figured out what we wanted to do," Nagle said.

Mullin was at that meeting, and said he support joining the new group.

"We want to be proactive in our communications approach and be supportive of high speed rail if it’s done right."

Since the new group's formation its members have worked toward developing a set of rail strategies all the involved cities can agree on, Patterson said.

The group's initial mission statement said member cities "accepted" the Rail Authority's proposal to bring high speed trains through the Peninsula along the Caltrain corridor. Since then, however, the group has retracted that statement, and is still open to alternate routes – but it's the prerogative of the member cities to address what is currently proposed by the High Speed Rail Authority, Patterson said.

Should the rail line be constructed as currently proposed, it will be necessary for the neighboring cities to work together on how it will be aligned, he said. For example, San Mateo will be effected by how Burlingame and Belmont wish the rail to be constructed, and vice versa. So it's in the best interest of all cities to get together early in an effort to resolve any possible differences, Patterson said.

Nagle said she believed it would be wise for any Peninsula city that has a vested interest in high speed rail to join the new group.

"If you want input to the Rail Authority, in my mind, you had better be at this table," she said.

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