Dumbarton Rail Corridor

The San Francisco Bay Area has had a long history of building and operating rail systems to provide for the mobility of the seven million people who live and work in the nine-county region. Caltrain operates a commuter rail service along a 77 mile corridor from San Francisco to San Jose to Gilroy, and this rail passenger service has its roots back to 1863. The Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system got its start in 1972, and its now extensive system connects San Francisco and the northern Peninsula with the Oakland and the East Bay with five lines, serving approximate 104 miles of heavy rail. Streetcar and light rail systems abound in many varieties, ranging from grade-separated subways (SF Muni) to at-grade systems (SF Muni, Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA)). Intercity/interregional rail service is provided from the Bay Area to the Central Valley communities of Sacramento and Stockton by Capitol Corridor (CC) and Altamont Commuter Express (ACE). All these systems make commuting rapid and convenient, and vastly improve the Bay Area’s mobility. While these systems have served the Bay Area well in the past and present, as the region continues to grow in the coming decades, mobility problems will persist and worsen. As with most urban areas in the United States, freeway peak hour capacity has been reached and demand for additional auto trips results in the spreading of the peak periods. The expansion of existing freeways and the building of new ones are facing increasing opposition because of costs and impacts. Most urban regions are turning to transit expansion as a means to achieve increased mobility. In the Bay Area, there are relatively few new rail projects or extensions on the drawing board and they all face funding challenges. The Dumbarton Rail Corridor (DRC) project is one of those projects. This paper describes the challenges of developing a freight rail corridor for re-use as a regional passenger rail service.