In the first big hit to the Bay Area from the Trump administration, newly minted Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao has put the brakes on $647 million for Caltrain to go electric — and in the process pretty much killed hopes for high-speed rail coming to San Francisco anytime soon.
Going electric would also allow the Peninsula line to be the final link in the high-speed rail system that Gov. Jerry Brown wants to stretch from San Francisco to Los Angeles.
In a Jan. 24 letter to Chao, all 14 Republicans in the state’s congressional delegation called for the Caltrain money to be put on hold until a full audit is done on high-speed rail.
On Friday, Chao obliged — the Federal Transit Administration, which she oversees, said a decision on the $647 million federal grant needed to keep the project going would be delayed.
Matthew Welbes, the agency’s director, told Caltrain officials in a letter that the delay would allow the grant “to be considered in conjunction” with President Trump’s upcoming budget proposal for fiscal 2017-18.
“I never imagined that the electrification of a train would be subjected to such brutal, partisan politics,” Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Palo Alto, whose district includes several Caltrain stations, said in a statement.
In his letter, Welbes said federal officials were aware of Caltrain’s March 1 deadline, but that Washington needed “additional time to complete review of this significant commitment of federal resources.”
Caltrain has already spent $150 million on planning to go electric, but without the federal and matching funds, the overall $1.98 billion project will go into limbo.
