Citing an uncertain financial future, the Council of San Benito
County Governments turned down a nearly $1 million grant for a
proposed Caltrain extension to Hollister.
Citing an uncertain financial future, the Council of San Benito County Governments turned down a nearly $1 million grant for a proposed Caltrain extension to Hollister.
COG rejected the federal funding that would have been used to help pay for the costs of starting a commuter rail line from Hollister to the Caltrain station in Gilroy.
However, several of the COG directors said they support, in principle, the idea of a commuter rail line.
“Yes, it is in all of our long-term goals to have one,” COG Director Pat Loe said.
One of the reservations COG members had with the proposed extension was control over the use of the rail line.
“There is someone who has exclusive rights to negotiate for use of that line,” Loe said. “I don’t want to spend $200,000 for environmental studies only to find out we can’t use the track.”
There was also a question concerning whether a commuter line would be as heavily used as supporters believe.
“It has not been demonstrated to me that people are going to use that line,” COG Director Pauline Valdivia said.
The most pressing concern for COG had to do with the current fiscal uncertainty posed by the state’s budget deficit and how much funding COG stood to lose in the near future.
To receive the grant, COG would have to generate approximately $250,000 in matching funds. With no assurance that it would have the rights to use the line, COG officials decided to keep the $250,000 in matching funds and put it to other uses.
“We have more pressing needs that those funds could be used for, like safety improvements on Highway 25,” Loe said. “Especially with the state budget the way it is right now.”
With the state’s budget deficit already growing past $34 billion, COG members said it would be best to be fiscally conservative now in order to ride out the economic slump.
“We are going to be hit by those budget cuts, and it could take five to eight years to get out of this bind,” Valdivia said.
COG directors said they would not rule out seeking the grant in the future when economic times are more stable.
The grant from the Federal Transit Administration would have been used to pay for the costs of preliminary engineering, environmental studies and any other project reports or studies needed to get the Caltrain extension rolling.
The reports the grant would have paid for included a list of alternatives on the number and size of station stops and types of bridge crossings.
There was also a proposal to refurbish the old train depot at the eastern end of Fifth Street and turn it back into a passenger loading and unloading point.
The proposed Hollister extension comes at the same time that Caltrain is also considering extending rail service to Salinas. Therefore, it made sense to officials to consider including Hollister.
COG officials authorized staff members to begin working on the proposed commuter rail back in February 2002, when board directors asked staff to look into a phased-in approach of creating the rail line.
