Gov. Jerry Brown joined Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi and a number of state and local elected officials, business leaders, transportation advocates and environmentalists at the Millbrae Caltrain Station on July 21 to celebrate the official groundbreaking ceremony for the Caltrain Electrification Project.

The project will electrify the Caltrain corridor between San Francisco and San Jose and will equip the corridor with high-performance electric trains that will deliver faster, more frequent service to help the system accommodate rapidly increasing ridership demand.

Over the last 150 years, passenger rail service on the Caltrain Corridor has helped shape the evolution of Peninsula communities. The groundbreaking celebration marks a long-awaited milestone toward a future when a modernized Caltrain connects our communities with state-of-the-art transit service that reduces travel time, increases capacity; and helps relieve congestion on one of the nation’s most important transportation corridors, Highway 101.

The change will also reduce noise generated by Caltrain, improve local air quality, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and create thousands of jobs in the Bay Area and across the country.

Electrification is a long-awaited project that has been a goal for the system since 1999. In 2012, local, regional and state funding partners agreed to commit resources that were used to match a $647 million Federal Full Funding Grant Agreement that was issued by the Federal Transit Administration in April of this year.

Construction will take place throughout the Caltrain corridor installing the new infrastructure necessary to support an electrified system. The Electrification Project is expected to be completed in 2021.