In May of 2021 Olson Remcho was selected to serve as General Counsel of Caltrain – the public transit agency which provides rail service between San Francisco and Gilroy. In this capacity the firm is advising the Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board (“JPB”), a joint powers authority composed of the City and County of San Francisco, the San Mateo County Transit District, and the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority which has owned and operated the railroad since 1991, on all their legal matters. The firm’s work will include providing the JPB with assistance in considering a new governance structure for the agency as specified by the JPB when Measure RR, which was passed by voters in San Francisco, San Mateo and Santa Clara counties in November 2020 to provide dedicated funding to Caltrain, was placed on the ballot.
“We are honored to be selected as General Counsel of Caltrain,” said James Harrison, who is leading the legal team representing the agency along with Robin Johansen, Tom Willis, Aaron Silva, Omar El-Qoulaq, and Anna Myles-Primakoff of Olson Remcho. “With a $2 billion electrification plan already underway, Caltrain is an amazing transit agency that provides vital congestion relief to the Bay Area with the goal of serving more consumers and taking more polluting vehicles off the roads for years to come.”
According to a Caltrain press release celebrating the passage of Measure RR, “Caltrain has grown to become the seventh largest commuter railroad in the country, the largest carrier of bikes of any American transit system, and the nation’s most efficient railroad. In the long-term, the 30-year measure will allow Caltrain to invest in the operation and expansion of faster, more frequent electrified service with added capacity necessary to accommodate expected increases in ridership demand in the decades to come. It will also allow the system to advance equity policies to help ensure Caltrain is accessible and affordable to all members of the communities it serves.”