Politics & Government

Familiar Concerns Get New Focus at High-Speed Rail Visioning Meeting

The "community kickoff" of Gilroy's homegrown study ranked the concerns of the attendees.

There were many familiar concerns expressed at the “community kickoff“ of Gilroy’s high-speed rail visioning process Monday night. Noise, traffic and eminent domain were popular topics, recalled from various rail forums over the past few months.

Yet for Gilroy’s homegrown study, last night was a time to begin forging those concerns into a unified vision.

“These meeting are to help make sure that you, as a community, get the kind of station you want,” said David Early, founder of the consulting firm Design, Community & Environment.

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The kickoff event, organized through Gilroy’s engineering department and DC&E, was a major step in the outreach for the five-month study of two locations under consideration for a high-speed rail station in the city.

The study, funded through a $150,000 VTA grant and $50,000 from Gilroy, is meant to look specifically at the two possible locations and develop a detailed recommendation for the California High-Speed Rail Authority.

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While the rail authority has the final say, a well-developed recommendation would go far in influencing the decision said Gilroy Transportation Engineer Don Dey.

“If we are proactive in our approach, they may actually listen to our request,” Dey said, “If we don’t at least make our preference known, they will have nothing to base their decision on.”

Attendees were asked to list their biggest concerns about the station, later receiving a limited number of adhesive dots to vote on each item. Each person could only vote on an item once, placing a dot next to large lists where the items were written.

A final list of results, further information and online input will be available on the project’s new website later this month, gilroyhighspeedtrain.org, according to project manager Jeff Williams.

Some high-ranking concerns were:

• Noise

• Destruction of historic areas

• Traffic/parking impacts

• Home destruction through eminent domain

Organizers were clear that they would try to find answers to all of the community’s questions. Yet when it came to subjects like track alignment beyond Gilroy and whether a station should be built at all, DC&E consultant Early emphasized the specific focus of the visioning study.

“Everyone is motivated by a desire to make Gilroy the best community it can be,” said Richard Davies, a project member from the consulting firm, Hatch Mott MacDonald.

The two options under consideration are a station near Gilroy’s downtown and a location sitting partially in an area of unincorporated land near the Gilroy Premium Outlets. Each station would be 1,500 feet long to accommodate the large trains, and both are interchangeable with the possible track alignments through San Martin and Morgan Hill.

At the culmination of the study in October, the Gilroy City Council will approve the firm’s recommendation before it is sent to the rail authority.

Several DC&E staff members are involved in the project, conducted on an accelerated timetable due to the rail authority’s desire to move forward with its process, said project manager Williams.

Before the vote, attendees received a presentation of Gilroy’s options as well as similar rail projects throughout the world. Davies, who was brought on because of his familiarity with high-speed rail projects, presented slides of stations around the world that ranged from deep trenches, elaborate hubs and utilitarian basics.

“The exact design of the station is something to consider,” said Davies.

The meeting followed a Spanish-language meeting earlier in the month, and organizers encouraged Spanish-speaking residents to attend future meetings. A translator provided services on Monday and will continue to be available.

The next public meeting will be held in June, with several meetings afterward dedicated to further refining the public’s view on the station options and even giving them a chance to draw their own ideal maps, said Early.

“The meetings build on each other sequentially,” Early said.

Early noted that the room at Gilroy’s Senior Center could hold four times as many people, and he said he hoped to see that many attend.

“We want the best possible solution, and we can’t do that unless lots of people come,” he said.


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