Train electrification would at minimum reduce pollution from diesel trains, and in the case of Caltrain, improve train services and reduce the number of cars on the road.
It is peak irony that a piece of environmental regulation is being used here to delay the upgrade works. On brand for California, of course.
In fact the article comes dangerously close to admitting that there is correlation without correlation, it opens with:
> Here is the short version. In 2012, Caltrain budgeted its electrification project — the backbone of the Peninsula's transit future and a prerequisite for high-speed rail to ever reach San Francisco — at roughly $1.5 billion. By 2017 that number had ballooned to $1.9 billion. In between, the Town of Atherton sued.
While I don't agree with what Atherton did here (in general, I did not look at the specifics), you have to be fairly negligent to think you're going to build something in California without a massive legal headache. This is a legislative problem which it sounds like, for this narrow case, the legislature actually solved (shockingly to me). I find it hard to blame the residents of the city for exercising their rights.
I've never been able to figure out what's so great about Atherton. The houses are big, but other than that, it's nothing special. Woodside is a nice horse community with hills and sequoias. Los Altos Hills used to be; there was a time when the Los Altos Hunt ran the town. Palo Alto is next to Stanford. Portola Valley used to have more patent holders per capita than anywhere else in the US. Atherton is just a bedroom town on flatland with big houses.
sometimes that's it... you're thinking they are not great and if others feel the same, then it's no wonder they feel insecure and are fighting footing for recognition.
> I've never been able to figure out what's so great about Atherton
It's 90s/2000s tech and finance money - excluded from Woodside so Atherton was the next best thing back then.
Not being around Asians played a huge role as well - in the 2000s, Saratoga, Cupertino, the Fremont Hills, and the parts of Palo that fell under Gunn High became "Asian" and we were viewed negatively by Silicon Valley types back then. I remember the white flight first hand [0].
> Woodside is a nice horse community with hills and sequoias
Older money (1950s-1990s)
> Palo Alto is next to Stanford
Palo Alto was much more "middle class" (think like Fremont is today) back then
Atherton residents include people like founders of A16Z, Stephen Curry and others. The funny thing, 10-15 years ago, a number of residences were second houses and generally empty.
Back about 15-16 years ago, there was an international incubator BlackBox based out of one of the properties in Atherton.
Time and again, a small group of people who have motivation and resources wins against numerous members of general public who are neither coordinated nor motivated enough.
The state should be able to collect damages for frivolous NIMBY lawsuits. I don’t care if they’re ashamed. If they’re fine paying more taxes to behave like idiots, who cares.
> Where do the fundraising events for House, Senate, and the State House happen
Atherton is wealthy. But it’s surrounded by the Bay Area. Atherton is uniquely civically engaged, but that’s about it. Palo Alto, Los Gatos, Cupertino and San Francisco can each muster more capital than it can, to say nothing of LA.
They absolutely can in aggregate, but all those towns you listed only became "rich" in the last 10-15 years, and their wealthy members tend to be extremely disassociated with the local political scene from personal experience giving advice to my peers.
Atherton, along with Hillsborough, Ladera, Potola Valley, and Woodside represent old and oldish money who were much more engaged and locally entrenched.
Atherton resident Marc Andreessen Apr 18th 2020: "It's Time To Build" "We can’t build nearly enough housing in our cities"[0]
Andreessen family 2 years later: "IMMENSELY AGAINST multifamily development! I am writing this letter to communicate our IMMENSE objection to the creation of multifamily overlay zones in Atherton... They will MASSIVELY decrease our home values"[1]
People in my town, Fort Worth, have been saying the same things for years. People were moving in too fast causing home values to sky rocket, so everyone was saying they need to build houses faster to prevent a property tax explosion. You can only build single family homes so fast, so then came the hundreds and hundreds of multi-family apartment campuses and home values immediately tanked. They got what they wished for. Now we have traffic, electric grid, and school system over crowding because they still can’t build everything else fast enough. Even still people keep moving in, about 65 new residents a day.
> expand that exemption from CEQA to include a public project for the institution or increase of other passenger rail service, which will be exclusively used by zero-emission trains, located entirely within existing rail rights-of-way or existing highway rights-of-way.
Unfortunately it does not works as intended all the times. From what I have personally observed, everything falls down to the city planners on the interpretation of the code changes.
I'm confused; AB2503 does specify some building standard changes ... to be studied and then adopted by 2032.
We're talking about how it exempts many things from CEQA litigation. Since it's been less than a year, I'm not sure how well we can gauge its effectiveness.
I agree completely and empathetically and vehemently with the idea behind the message.
The slop & aggressively poor argumentation, the kind that I think would have caused me to fail it if I tried it in speech & debate in middle school, leaves me feeling empty.
They keep saying $400M, $400M, $400M, $400M, and the only cost they came up with is $20M. It makes me uncomfortable to support the overall cause if this is how it'll be played, because, setting aside morality of tactics, it's not playing to win. Anyone who is at the margins will see it plainly and be given a reason not to listen.
Local governments are obsolete, a holdover from when you had to have a government entity over areas within a day’s horseback ride. States should disestablish these towns and counties and reorganize them as administrative subdivisions of the state that answer directly to the governor and state legislature.
That sounds too extreme. I like Australia where states (ok much less populated than US states!) have certain building powers esp. to build rail infra but local can manage planning rules pertaining to an area but within a state level framework.
Train electrification would at minimum reduce pollution from diesel trains, and in the case of Caltrain, improve train services and reduce the number of cars on the road.
It is peak irony that a piece of environmental regulation is being used here to delay the upgrade works. On brand for California, of course.
The HN rules need to expand to ban all AI generated posts.
> They lost. So why did it still cost us $400 million?
Did the article provide a direct answer to this? I see the $20M delay payments to contractors and the rise of labor costs cited, but is that all?
It did not.
In fact the article comes dangerously close to admitting that there is correlation without correlation, it opens with:
> Here is the short version. In 2012, Caltrain budgeted its electrification project — the backbone of the Peninsula's transit future and a prerequisite for high-speed rail to ever reach San Francisco — at roughly $1.5 billion. By 2017 that number had ballooned to $1.9 billion. In between, the Town of Atherton sued.
While I don't agree with what Atherton did here (in general, I did not look at the specifics), you have to be fairly negligent to think you're going to build something in California without a massive legal headache. This is a legislative problem which it sounds like, for this narrow case, the legislature actually solved (shockingly to me). I find it hard to blame the residents of the city for exercising their rights.
Can the county remove Atherton from its services coverage boundaries until the $400M of costs have been recouped?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawfare
I think we should have a letter writing campaign to shame residents of Atherton. There's not that many of them.
I've never been able to figure out what's so great about Atherton. The houses are big, but other than that, it's nothing special. Woodside is a nice horse community with hills and sequoias. Los Altos Hills used to be; there was a time when the Los Altos Hunt ran the town. Palo Alto is next to Stanford. Portola Valley used to have more patent holders per capita than anywhere else in the US. Atherton is just a bedroom town on flatland with big houses.
sometimes that's it... you're thinking they are not great and if others feel the same, then it's no wonder they feel insecure and are fighting footing for recognition.
don’t forget cachet among well off people.
> I've never been able to figure out what's so great about Atherton
It's 90s/2000s tech and finance money - excluded from Woodside so Atherton was the next best thing back then.
Not being around Asians played a huge role as well - in the 2000s, Saratoga, Cupertino, the Fremont Hills, and the parts of Palo that fell under Gunn High became "Asian" and we were viewed negatively by Silicon Valley types back then. I remember the white flight first hand [0].
> Woodside is a nice horse community with hills and sequoias
Older money (1950s-1990s)
> Palo Alto is next to Stanford
Palo Alto was much more "middle class" (think like Fremont is today) back then
[0] - https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB113236377590902105
Atherton residents include people like founders of A16Z, Stephen Curry and others. The funny thing, 10-15 years ago, a number of residences were second houses and generally empty.
Back about 15-16 years ago, there was an international incubator BlackBox based out of one of the properties in Atherton.
Wasn't 10-15 years ago the financial crisis?
2008
Time and again, a small group of people who have motivation and resources wins against numerous members of general public who are neither coordinated nor motivated enough.
> we should have a letter writing campaign
The state should be able to collect damages for frivolous NIMBY lawsuits. I don’t care if they’re ashamed. If they’re fine paying more taxes to behave like idiots, who cares.
Where do the fundraising events for House, Senate, and the State House happen ;)
Atherton is a vibe, but it's an older demographic of tech and finance successes (the 1990s-2000s scene).
> Where do the fundraising events for House, Senate, and the State House happen
Atherton is wealthy. But it’s surrounded by the Bay Area. Atherton is uniquely civically engaged, but that’s about it. Palo Alto, Los Gatos, Cupertino and San Francisco can each muster more capital than it can, to say nothing of LA.
They absolutely can in aggregate, but all those towns you listed only became "rich" in the last 10-15 years, and their wealthy members tend to be extremely disassociated with the local political scene from personal experience giving advice to my peers.
Atherton, along with Hillsborough, Ladera, Potola Valley, and Woodside represent old and oldish money who were much more engaged and locally entrenched.
Atherton resident Marc Andreessen Apr 18th 2020: "It's Time To Build" "We can’t build nearly enough housing in our cities"[0]
Andreessen family 2 years later: "IMMENSELY AGAINST multifamily development! I am writing this letter to communicate our IMMENSE objection to the creation of multifamily overlay zones in Atherton... They will MASSIVELY decrease our home values"[1]
[0] https://a16z.com/its-time-to-build/
[1] https://therealdeal.com/san-francisco/2022/08/08/marc-andree...
I can sympathize.
People in my town, Fort Worth, have been saying the same things for years. People were moving in too fast causing home values to sky rocket, so everyone was saying they need to build houses faster to prevent a property tax explosion. You can only build single family homes so fast, so then came the hundreds and hundreds of multi-family apartment campuses and home values immediately tanked. They got what they wished for. Now we have traffic, electric grid, and school system over crowding because they still can’t build everything else fast enough. Even still people keep moving in, about 65 new residents a day.
it's time to build (ew, no not here... somewhere else)!
Relevant Onion: https://theonion.com/report-98-percent-of-u-s-commuters-favo...
CEQA is basically a weapon for the rich to stop anything. It needs massive reform.
A big reform passed in 2025: https://calmatters.org/housing/2025/06/ceqa-urban-developmen...
Also AB 2503:
> expand that exemption from CEQA to include a public project for the institution or increase of other passenger rail service, which will be exclusively used by zero-emission trains, located entirely within existing rail rights-of-way or existing highway rights-of-way.
Directionally correct, but doesn't go far enough.
Is there any serious argument against repealing CEQA? NEPA exists. As do public lands.
Exemptions for favored things. Should do a full reform.
Unfortunately it does not works as intended all the times. From what I have personally observed, everything falls down to the city planners on the interpretation of the code changes.
I'm confused; AB2503 does specify some building standard changes ... to be studied and then adopted by 2032.
We're talking about how it exempts many things from CEQA litigation. Since it's been less than a year, I'm not sure how well we can gauge its effectiveness.
This is from my own personal experience for normal housing project. The city officials works as conservatively to safeguard themselves.
I agree completely and empathetically and vehemently with the idea behind the message.
The slop & aggressively poor argumentation, the kind that I think would have caused me to fail it if I tried it in speech & debate in middle school, leaves me feeling empty.
They keep saying $400M, $400M, $400M, $400M, and the only cost they came up with is $20M. It makes me uncomfortable to support the overall cause if this is how it'll be played, because, setting aside morality of tactics, it's not playing to win. Anyone who is at the margins will see it plainly and be given a reason not to listen.
Local governments are obsolete, a holdover from when you had to have a government entity over areas within a day’s horseback ride. States should disestablish these towns and counties and reorganize them as administrative subdivisions of the state that answer directly to the governor and state legislature.
While you’re at it, why not disestablish the state and have everything federal?
There is value in local control - with some glaring exception.
That sounds too extreme. I like Australia where states (ok much less populated than US states!) have certain building powers esp. to build rail infra but local can manage planning rules pertaining to an area but within a state level framework.
It would take like two minutes to cross Atherton on a horse.
[delayed]