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3/30/2012
On Wednesday, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission approved a regional agreement to fully fund the electrification of Caltrain.
The Memorandum of Understanding between the California High-Speed Rail Authority and more than a half-dozen San Francisco Bay-area public agencies will make use of local, regional and federal funding to leverage hundreds of millions of dollars in high-speed rail matching funds for investing in Caltrain’s electrification and modernization, Caltrain officials said in a prepared statement.
The investment could result in a modernized Caltrain system as soon as 2020, they said. The commission’s vote “represents the first step in what will eventually be a great leap forward for transit on the peninsula,” said Caltrain Executive Director Mike Scanlon. “It demonstrates how we can effectively prepare for the future and at the same time realize tangible, more immediate benefits for our riders and our communities.”
The agreement still must be endorsed by the San Francisco County Transportation Authority, San Mateo County Transportation Authority, Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority, city of San Jose, and city and county of San Francisco, as well as the Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board, which owns and operates Caltrain.
Additional improvements, which would be completed after Caltrain is electrified, would be needed before future high-speed rail service could operate on the corridor, officials said.
Caltrain officials are studying various alternatives to determine the infrastructure improvements necessary to support high-speed rail. The agreement specifies that future improvements would be limited to support blended high-speed and commuter-rail operations on a system that is primarily two-tracks.