MHMatters_1806web

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Vargas Addresses MH Rotary
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discuss what could be done to help alleviate
traffic congestion over the Altamont along the
I-580 corridor.
She explained to the group of Rotarians and
guests that it was when she and Haggerty
were able to help facilitate a bipartisan coming-together
to create State Assembly Bill
758, authored by Assembly members Susan
Talamontes Eggman and Katherine Baker,
that the dream began to take shape into reality.
AB 758 created the Joint Powers Authority,
and mandates their mission to complete the
feasibility study for this “Mega-Region” issue.
The Regional Rail Authority consists of leaders
from 15 affected municipalities and organizations,
including the Community Services
District of Mountain House.
Ms. Vargas included in her presentation the
list of the representative members of the new
board, as shown in the adjacent chart.
A big take-away from Ms. Vargas’ address was
that her board just accepted and added to the
feasibility study a proposal by Mountain House
CSD, as presented by MHCSD staff Engineer
Anthony Docto, to consider the possibility of
including a rail station just off of I-580 at Grant
Line Rd, near Altamont Rd.
Docto made the case in Public Comments at
the March JPA meeting that this location would
make for a great opportunity for easy access off
the freeway, while also providing an optimum
location for the growing commuter town that
is Mountain House.
While there is no guarantee that this station will
make the final cut, having enough support from
the board to allow it to be added to the list of
station locations being considered was a big
accomplishment.
Mountain House Matters! • mhmatters.net June 2018
MH Rotary President, Bryan Harrison, thanked Veronica Vargas for
speaking at the June 8th meeting
Ms. Vargas also spoke briefly about the BART
Board’s vote May 24th not to expand their
service to Livermore. They had just voted to
certify the long-awaited environmental impact
report necessary before the extension project
could be decided upon, a significant step.
A very close 5-4 decision defeated a motion to
accept the BART expansion to Isabel Ave in
Livermore (a proposed $1.6 billion project).
Those opposed deferred to concerns for the
need to use available resources to maintain
and update the system on the whole, along with
preference by some who preferred to go with
a Bus Rapid Transit alternative. A follow-up
motion saw the BRT defeated as well.
Immediately following those votes, board
members acknowledged the mandate of the
new Regional Rail Authority to address the
much larger megaregion issue, and that similar
funding to what it would cost to expand BART
would effectively be spread over a much more
expansive landscape, versus a 5 mile stretch
along I-580.
Ms. Vargas addressed some questions from
the crowd, and her enthusiasm for the project
was infectious.
Valley Link Rail Authority meeting
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Livermore, diverting the responsibility
for a system in the area to fall to the
V-Link project.
Also, it was announced that the project
was awarded a CalTrans Sustainable
Transportation Planning Grant in the
amount of $750,000.
Chairman Scott Haggerty and Vice
Chair Veronica Vargas ran the meeting
of 15 representative agencies on the
board.
A common thread for Haggerty is to make this
new system completely independent of the
Union Pacific Railroad lines, as limitations
associated with running on the Union Pacific
tracks stalled progress being attempted earlier
by the ACE Train system (Altamont Corridor
Express). ACE had planned to expand service
from four trains daily to ten. Sharing U.P.
tracks makes that untenable.
The V-Link JPA committee was reported to
be right on schedule at this time, with Phase I
being nearly complete.
Vice Chair Veronica Vargas, Chair Scott Haggerty, and Exec Dir Michael Tree
Their ambitious goal of completing a feasibility
study and being “shovel-ready” by July
2019 includes, among numerous other things:
identifying station locations, train types, and
perhaps most daunting, completing an Environmental
Impact Report.
Vice Chair Vargas stated the strong hope that
they will be able to utilize the BART EIR that
was certified at the May 24th meeting, as well
as the EIR recently produced by Ace-Forward,
for a significant jump-start to completing the
V-Link EIR. “We would basically have to
connect the dots with the rest of the system.”
Martin Ritter, of Stadler Rail, addresses the Regional Rail Authority