s that there is some funding but not all. in reality, there is no large infrastructure project anywhere that they have committed to. that is just not the way it happens. the anbar and a review of -- the environmental review is true as a general statement, but what they have done is bring down the right mental document into different areas so they can address whenever they are going to be building first ahead of time. and, of course, there is the issue of funding. right now, there is only $6

billion, and the cost is more than that. the phase 1 completion has been delayed. the cost has more than doubled. construction done in the central valley. we relayed our own concerns with the business plan. the first one is that the first high-speed rain -- rail will not be until 2022.

this will be at fourth and king, not at trans bay. 2034. the statement in the business plan basically said it would be as money became available. so there were concerns that we had. what you have is them saying it is a financially unconstrained schedule. all of the money will be needed. 2030 four 4 cents as an, it may not even be that. other concerns that the city family had is that there is no commitment, as we discussed. the money is spent before the

first passenger boards a train. we believe that the long wait for service will frustrate the public and turn them against it. this may be problematic. they do and grays and operation. but it is different than their vision. theirs is at very high cost. we also believe it will not attract private funding. last week, we had a technical meeting. with the high-speed rail representatives. it was a very positive meeting. they welcome to our comments. we will continue meeting with them, looking at ways to incorporate our comments into the business plan, so i want to make it clear that we are working with a very positive relationship with them.

the fast start project. this is a concept that i guess had its initial determination in april of last year, when we started to think about what we could do to accelerate what happens in our neck of the woods. and so we thought about, ok, what can we do could do we initiate some kind of high speed service that is now early, , that can be done concurrently with whatever high speed rail is doing it? and that would provide an early experience for high-speed rail, and maybe the way it is structured will attract private funding, and very importantly,

because you have to live under a rock not to be aware of the challenges in the peninsula that high-speed rail has been facing. this concept provides the opportunity to create an agreement and consensus, which is very important. we need that to get high-speed rail to san francisco. the concept is pretty basic. there are two projects that are currently in the books that are currently under way. one involves caltrans. and the downtown extension to translate. these two projects have completed their ornamental work. the downtown extension has been and are meant to be cleared. and they have completed the work. it only needs adoption by the board of the agreement the

document to complete the anbar and interplant. we think there is to the report projects, there is a minimal infrastructure to accommodate the high-speed rail and we will start from there. there are caught -- a couple of power stations and some transformers, train control. the downtown extension, a 1.3 mile extension that will provide access. we believe that the project provides a great opportunity for the bay area. because it provides for the early delivery of high-speed rail to san francisco. it will have a high ridership,

and it could be a model. it would be the best use of available funds. this table shows the comparative cost of the proposed systems. the fast start project is significantly less expensive than what the authority has postponed. -- i have to make it clear that the 4.5 number reflects some cost reductions that we are looking into for the downtown extension. we will be working with others to look at ways in which we can make the project more fun the ball.

in this day and age, it is not easy to come up with even $5 billion. as you can see here in this chart, we have the projections. it is a line. it is supposed to be a bar, but it is so small that it appears as a line. the san joaquin valley. when you compare that to the peninsula, 19.5 with caltrain, there is no comparison with the other sections. caltrain conducted a capacity study, and they are still working on it.

the preliminary findings were that the blender system has merit. and it as a potential of up to 10 trains per hour. without passing tracks, it would accommodate two high-speed per hour with others. it is more than adequate for initial high-speed rail service. it is something that can be achieved as easy as i think can be with this type of project. we are in support. there is a feasibility study on going to evaluate the methods, such as the design bill.

and looking at structures. i am happy to report on that study. the first draft has been completed, and is now being reviewed internally by the stakeholders working group. as a matter of fact, we have a meeting tomorrow to discuss this. and so we are hoping to have it ready for publication shortly. and the first is supporting caltrans. their service plan and analysis. this effort of the fast start -- will only work if we are working together, pushing in the same

direction, and that is very important. the study i was just talking about, complete it, and work with others to develop this. that has already been done. the mayor had a meeting last week, including studies from san jose to discuss this concept and start building a consensus for it, and, of course, for the members. it is a bit of heavy lifting, but it is necessary in order to get everybody on the same page, and especially at the peninsula. there has been a lot of animosity.

we will be as this will help bring a consensus hot and allows service, -- bring a consensus and allow service. it will provide service, early service, to the right the ship corridor. we believe it is more technical and financially feasible way of having a burly service. with that, i will be answering any questions you may have. -- having early service. >> we actually have a second representative from caltrain. director brinkman: i got ahead of myself. thank you.

>> i will just get started while they are fighting the presentation. good afternoon. i am director of the modernization program. wanted to thank you for your time today. i believe the handout that you have is more than what i'm going to speak about. it has information. really the caltrain financial state of the state. and the first half and second- half is about our modernization program. i was asked to talk about the second part, so i will be starting from slide 13.

ok, so, for the presentation today, and i will be talking about the overall caltrain modernization program, and i will remind on the coordination with high-speed rail, which should complement what luis presented. there are key components to our modernization program. it is the implementation of an advanced signal system, and metrification of our california train system, which is currently diesel, and our goal is to convert it to a better system, and i just want to point out

that a consultant with high- speed rail is here today. so our advanced signal system -- basically a distance for communication-based overlay signal system positive train control. there's two key aspects to this signal system. the cboss component is essential to support the blended system. it helps us to increase capacity, which means it allows us to run more trains in our corridor. the smart system allows us to operate closer headways between the trains. the second component, which is even more important, has to do with the unfunded safety mandate that is required by the fra, and that is something that all transit operators will need to put in place by 2015.

there are discussions about extending the time line, but as we know it today, and his 2015, and it is our goal to meet that time line. the second component of our program has to do with electrification. this is a vision and goal that caltrain has had for quite a while. it is an adopted policy that has been in place for over a decade if not longer. what we are essentially trying to do is we want to provide more service to our growing customer base, and we want to do it in an environmentally friendly way. that friendlier way is to use electric power instead of diesel. it also serves another purpose in that in this approach, we are able to help address our financial state caltrain. we have been struggling without a dedicated funding source to

find the money on an annual basis to operate the caltrain system in which the demand for our service has been growing. by election frying our system, we are able to provide more service, which would support more riders, bringing more revenue, and by converting from diesel to electric, we would be able to save money on the fuel required to run the system. the project includes not only the electrification conversion, but also to increase service. today, we operate five trains per direction in the peak hour, and part of this electrification project is to increase that from 5 to 6. our original vision was to have our system up and running by 2015. we have been struggling for years to find the funding for this project. the total project, which

includes electrification and the vehicle conversion, is approximately $1.2 billion. we have some of it in place -- a couple of hundreds of millions -- but we are short the rest of the money, and that had been stalling the advancement of our program. this is a nice segue into the next project -- to the next slide. as we were struggling with this funding situation, the high- speed rail program was approved by the voters, and high-speed rail also selected our corridor as the right of way to access to san francisco market and its terminus. the opportunity for partnerships had to do with the fact that high-speed rail needed an electrified system and caltrain has been wanting an electrified system. the thought was that together, we could combine our local, state, and federal resources to

electrify the corridor, which would serve both purposes. in advancing the system, we have had lots of challenges. i am here, i guess, trying to represent the interests of the three counties, all of the peninsula cities in the middle, and san francisco. we need to identify a project that works for all of our stakeholders, idealistically, and maybe more realistically, most. initially, we had been contemplating -- all of us -- had been contemplating a very large project for our corridor. in our existing corridor, we essentially have a two-track system. in certain areas, we have three or four tracks, but it is primarily two tracks. what was initially contemplated

was the expansion of the system from two four, and because we do not have the right of way to accommodate an expansion, it would necessitate impact to many of the jurisdictions that have grown up along our corridor. significantly, many of the peninsula cities. in contemplating what those impacts might mean, having emotional reactions to what that might do with our downtown, so we had three elected officials challenged us to find a better answer, and those elected officials were a u.s. congressman, a senator, and an assemblyman, and they basically said, "we want you to explore the feasibility of a blended system." the splendid system is an integrated caltrain and high- speed rail service, maximizing the use of our existing tracks,

connecting at the station in san jose and extending all the way to translate terminals -- transbay terminals. focus was an effort to emphasize community impacts, and in addition, it would have the added benefit of lowering the project cost. the system would be much smaller than the larger project that was initially complicated. -- contemplated. it helps with project delivery in advancing that. the first thing that caltrain i it -- did in response to their request was to conduct -- we call that lots of things, but i think you landed on a capacity analysis. basically, we had to answer this question first, which is -- given our existing tracks, can we share those with high-speed rail? if we cannot, i'm not sure there was much more to do. we had to make sure that

operationally, the concept proposed was feasible. we have been working with ltk engineering consulting, who had been with us quite a while. they know our system intimately, and they developed a computer simulation model for us, and they build our corridor. the system that they build is very different from what we have today and the same in many ways. it is same in that they essentially put into place a track that exists today. what is very different is that they have modeled a completely electrified system. it has our advanced signal system in place, which allows us to run closer headways, and it models the superior performance attributes of electric trains versus our current diesel fleet. this is very important to point

out because if we were to model today's system, i believe we could not get the results that we did, but because we modeled the electrified system as how we envision it, we were able to accomplish more. some of the additional track assumptions -- we assumed three high-speed rail stations, and i am going to clarify something because it has led to confusion with what luis presented. the capacity study looked at only our existing tracks to date, which means we looked at fourth and king. it does not imply we're not going to go to transbay terminal. a question at hand was -- with our existing tracks, what could we accommodate? then we also tested the idea of passing tracks. this is for a segment of our

corridor -- a corridor is approximately 50 miles -- we know that it was not supported by our local folks in the peninsula, but we did say if we added tracks for a segment about eight to 10 miles an those tracks were utilized by high- speed rail trains only to bypass the caltrain trains, we have to continue to make our stops. high-speed rail needs to go faster. could that bias more capacity? we also studied that option. this is the slide that luis had. the model shows us that we cannot operate such a service plan. we are building on top of the six caltrain trains. we can support up to four trains. up to two that the passing tracks and up to four with the passing tracks. this is what the model has spit

out. the model is credible. we are continuing to work with high-speed rail to make and model output and bridge that to the reality of our corridor and make sure that this makes sense. in terms of next steps, we have conducted outreach on the draft report of this capacity analysis to our stakeholders. we are hoping to wrap it up in the middle of this month. another important point to make is the report is a proof of concept only. we had to make assumptions about changes in schedules. we contemplated different speeds. we contemplated a lot of things, but nothing is set in stone. it is not the answer to anything. what it tells us is that if we were to do it this way, we could share our tracks with high-speed

rail. there are many more steps to come, which i will share in the second, as we -- as to how we get into what the answer is. we have checked off two new planning studies that luis also mentioned. in doing the outreach with the capacity study, we have gotten feedback from multiple stakeholders on other things that they think we should look at. i think the one most relevant to san francisco is cassette and now, can you build up your model to the transbay terminal and run the trains through and what implications that would have on travel time and what other implications that may have?" we are doing that is the second part of the analysis and looking at other what if options. people are curious about what happens to freight traffic, curious about if we ran different types of schedules, so we have a handful of things that we have to look at. the other big question that we

have to address is a long our corridor, we have 40 at-grade crossings. when we were contemplating a larger project, it really was assumed that it would be a fully grid separated system. now that we have a smaller project, we will not have a four tracks everywhere. we will not be going at speeds beyond 110 miles per hour. we have to ask the question of how we need to upgrade the air- grade crossings because there is no regulation that requires us to separate if we are contemplating speeds of under 125 miles an hour. this study is to not only get the regulatory issues but also the local city consents as the change in date downtime will have impacts to their local traffic today and tomorrow. this is the last slide i will go

over. this is a visual that tries to depict an overall planning process that caltrain is facilitating with all of its stakeholders and figuring out what we would like to see in our corridor. what are described in terms of the capacity analysis and the two new planning efforts are the three boxes at the top. our goal is to get to the very bottom box or close to their, where we are essentially trying to get from identifying issues and gathering data to inform our stakeholders to identify in what project alternatives we want to environmentally clear in our document. as you know, high-speed rail has put environmental activities for our corridor from san francisco to san jose on hold, and it is

on hold until we figure out what it is we want to build in the corridor. we believe that with the inputs we have gotten from various stakeholders that this will get us to that end. this is an approximate two-year time frame. we started this effort about six months ago. we have about a year-and-a-half to complete the planning work and to go through a dialogue that is going to be focused on essentially a decision matrix. everyone will have to make compromises to support both systems. this will essentially lay out the upfront investment and compromises that would be needed to get the return on investment and for us to quantify what that return on investment is. i will mention one more thing before i conclude -- i think that the hardest