Will San Francisco Vote on the Transbay Terminal in June?
San Francisco Supervisor Chris Daly, who represents District 6 (including the Transbay Terminal location), is looking for more leverage against the California High Speed Rail Authority’s push to study alternatives to the location of the SF HSR terminus, including the Beale Street alternative. Daly is proposing SF voters be asked to reconfirm their support for terminating the HSR route at the existing Transbay Terminal site through a ballot initiative that would be placed on the June ballot:
Chirs Daly SF Transbay initiative
Daly seems to believe this will help leverage the Authority to back off their push for a Beale Street study by mobilizing public opinion. It’s not clear if this will work, or even if it’s still relevant if $400 million is indeed going to the Transbay train box (note that Daly submitted the proposal on January 19, before news of the HSR stimulus broke).
But it’s a sign that Daly is pulling out all the stops to keep the Transbay project as planned, with HSR terminating at the station, instead of on Beale Street.
What is the status of the throat design & platform capacity issues, anyway?
He has alot more to woory about than this silly thing ..like the Muni service cuts.
I’m tired of the Peninsula monopolizing all the news about CAHSR. But I guess down here in LA and over in the Central Valley, no news is good news.
Matthew F. Reply:
February 3rd, 2010 at 6:36 pm
Well, I found it interesting in the PDF Clem posted a link to that Anaheim LA is scheduled to be the first “usable segment” (as defined by AB3034) to enter revenue service, in December 2017. Us poor schmoes in San Diego (mid 2021) come after not only Sacramento (early 2020), but also after Altamont (late 2020) (!) – though I assume that means improved commuter rail?
Donk Reply:
February 3rd, 2010 at 6:52 pm
Well I guess you schmoes in San Diego will at least have a faster trip to LA as a result of the LA-Anaheim route. I am assuming that Amtrak/Metrolink/Coaster will get its act together and time some of the routes to synch up for a quick transfer to HSR in Anaheim. If this was done I might take the train to SD more often…especially if they allowed dogs on board.
I really wish there was more movement on the idea to dig a tunnel through University City. Going past Sorrento Valley on the train is just not viable due to the long detour around the hill. There were some Amtrak documents like 10 years ago about doing this, but of course there hasn’t been any funding for it.
Matthew F. Reply:
February 3rd, 2010 at 10:18 pm
That’s what I’m planning on. It’ll be interesting to see just how much of that track 1 money goes to the SD-LA segment, and what the specific improvements are. There are certainly a lot of segments that could use double-tracking.
I do happen to be closest to the Sorrento station :) Someone was saying that the idea of tunneling is basically dead unless the Coaster were to switch to electric trains, which nobody seems to see on the near horizon. I think it would be a great boon to public transit if eventually the UTC station includes HSR, Coaster, and Trolley stops.
Joey Reply:
February 3rd, 2010 at 10:45 pm
Hell, if it weren’t for the FRA, they could probably upgrade the coast line and run HSR trains down to San Diego at reduced speeds in Phase 1. Would electrify a lot of Metrolink, Surfliner, and Coaster track in the process, too.
jimsf Reply:
February 3rd, 2010 at 11:33 pm
except that hell would freeze over before san clemente would allow catenary on the beach between them and their ocean views.
Joey Reply:
February 3rd, 2010 at 11:45 pm
Yeah San Clemente and Del Mar are problematic areas. Various solutions have been proposed, including tunnels in both areas.
jimsf Reply:
February 4th, 2010 at 12:03 am
they could just speed up surfliners to 110 and throw some express and limited into that mix, that would give pretty good travel times to sd
Matthew F. Reply:
February 4th, 2010 at 1:01 am
That seems to be the plan, from what I’ve read… but again it’ll be interesting to see what actually got stimulus funding.
Bobierto Reply:
February 4th, 2010 at 11:36 am
I agree, if the Amtrak trip up to LA wasn’t such an ordeal I would be OK with transfering to HSR there.
jimsf Reply:
February 4th, 2010 at 12:08 pm
The travel time from san diego to anaheim is 1 hour and 56 minutes. how much would an increase to 110 save? I hate these word problems.
I think that until hsr gets to San Diego, flying to SF is still going to be preferred.
Matthew F. Reply:
February 5th, 2010 at 12:16 am
Except to people who don’t like to fly :)
I think the improvements are also supposed to allow for expresses, which will help that time limit a lot. (The first time I took the surfliner up to Union Station, I boggled at the number of stops on the way).
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
February 3rd, 2010 at 9:12 pm
Sorry about that. I debated between posting on this and on a Bakersfield Californian article about the competition for the maintenance hub. I think I’ll do that tomorrow.
I told Spokker a little while back I was planning something more in-depth on Anaheim. Haven’t gotten to it yet. Although I’ll be in OC this weekend, so maybe I’ll go take a look.
“Don’t worry your pretty little heads about it.
Everything is under control.
We have the finest professionals working on it.
Trust us.”
Matthew F. Reply:
February 3rd, 2010 at 10:19 pm
I don’t think anyone has argued that it would be a DISASTER, just that it would be imperfect.
I interpret this as Chris Daly firing a shot across the bow against Kopp. Does Kopp still want to try to hold up the Transbay Terminal project at a time when the funding and environmental clearances are in place and construction workers are desperate for work?? If Kopp persists, Daly is basically warning him: “It’s on!”
This proposition should be approved in a landslide, and if there is one thing politicians respect (even unelected ones), it is a popular referendum. Kopp would have to slink away in defeat.
The rumor going around is that the CHSRA really falsified ridership data and that they are going to lose the stimulus money from the federal government.
My source said that the news will be public on Friday. Just something interesting to keep on the lookout for.
Joey Reply:
February 3rd, 2010 at 6:50 pm
That sounds a bit outrageous. What is your source for this?
Spokker Reply:
February 3rd, 2010 at 7:01 pm
I’m only reporting the rumor, not that I necessarily think it’s going to happen or not.
To clarify, the rumor is that false data was used on the ridership models and that the CHSRA cheated.
Don’t shoot the messenger. Honk, honk.
Me Reply:
February 3rd, 2010 at 8:12 pm
http://www.calhsr.com/resources/ridership-forecast/
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
February 3rd, 2010 at 9:23 pm
Maybe I’m missing something here, but on the CARRD site I read the following about the ridership study:
“Sample methods were highly biased towards those who are most likely to take a High Speed Rail train. 96% of the Californians surveyed to assess their interest in taking High Speed Rail for commuting were current train riders.”
But in fact, on page 2-1 of the linked PDF, I read the following:
“In total, 3,172 surveys were conducted on this project. This includes:
• 1,234 airline passenger intercept surveys;
• 430 rail passenger intercept and telephone surveys; and
• 1,508 auto trip telephone surveys.”
So I don’t see the basis for the “96% of Californians surveyed…” claim in the evidence. That might be something you’d want to retract, unless there’s another source for it.
Observer Reply:
February 3rd, 2010 at 9:31 pm
Me, I agree with Robert here (and that’s the last time you’ll hear me say that). I see the table, I don’t see where the 96% comes from. Can you explain how they come up with that?
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
February 3rd, 2010 at 9:51 pm
I’m taking a screenshot of that comment.
Elizabeth Reply:
February 3rd, 2010 at 10:17 pm
The way the model worked was that it segmented the users by distance and purpose and then estimated completely different markets for each of these. This is why you will see 5 different sets of model coefficients
For the commute segment look at short trips (between regions but less than 100 miles) in the table:
6 car and 159 train riders. 159/165 = 96.3%
spokker Reply:
February 4th, 2010 at 6:23 am
It sounds like you’re cherry picking. They only did 430 rail passenger surveys total.
spokker Reply:
February 4th, 2010 at 6:37 am
CHSRA has said that they don’t even want to focus on commute trips. I disagree with this, but whatever.
BruceMcF Reply:
February 4th, 2010 at 9:23 am
So you are arguing that the CAHSRA falsified its data to massively underestimate the diversion from road to rail for short trips?
Setting aside why the CAHSRA would deliberately falsify its data to lowball ridership estimates. how would a massive underestimate of the opportunity of diversion of road to rail for short trips be anything that a granting agency would be worried about?
spokker Reply:
February 5th, 2010 at 1:24 pm
I haven’t found the story on the rumor yet, but I have more information. The rumor alleges that the CAHSRA improperly used Cambridge Systematic’s analysis in an authorized manner and Cambridge is pissed.
spokker Reply:
February 5th, 2010 at 1:25 pm
Unauthorized manner, that is.
BruceMcF Reply:
February 5th, 2010 at 1:40 pm
Ah, Cambridge angry that CHSRA applied for billions of dollars without paying for an updatedd ridership model. That makes a substantial amount of cynical sense.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
February 5th, 2010 at 4:52 pm
It makes more sense if you add another layer or two of tin foil to the hat.
john Reply:
February 4th, 2010 at 10:30 am
wait just a second… So does this mean that The French also cooked the books on ridership? What would they stand to gain?
Jack Reply:
February 3rd, 2010 at 7:00 pm
I call BS. Standard FUD, disastrous news will be released look for it Friday. Then when it comes to Friday, oh wait no I meant Monday. No way would someone sit on something like this, they would release it ASAP.
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
February 3rd, 2010 at 9:14 pm
We all keep hearing the same things, and I’ve seen the same data that “Me” posted above. So far there’s nothing to back up the “falsified” claim, but there are certainly many questions still being asked about the detailed ridership numbers. My guess is this ends with the legislature ordering another ridership study.
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
February 3rd, 2010 at 9:22 pm
In fact, since much of the ridership numbers date to studies done between 2000 and 2005, redoing them in 2010 will only boost the case for HSR, since there has been a significant amount of growth in passenger rail ridership since then.
probally started by the nimby or the ‘reason’ crowd of course..worthless
Spokker Reply:
February 3rd, 2010 at 7:37 pm
The information that I received likely comes from TRAC, but I cannot say with complete certainty.
Like I said just wait until Friday to see if it’s true. It’s all in good fun.
If the rumor is true and the money is taken back, I hope that the funding can be diverted to the Amtrak California system. I’ve always believed that upgrading the Surfliner/Capitol Corridor/San Joaquins was a much better short-term/medium-term goal than HSR. I just figured that shit was never going to happen on a serious level as long as CAHSR was the focus, so might as well support it since it’s *something*.
The money the Amtrak California system gets from the stimulus is pitiful.
jimsf Reply:
February 4th, 2010 at 12:45 am
I wonder how much it would cost anyway… to upgrade the three amtrak california routes to 110, close the central coast gap, and close the gab between bakersfield amtrak and palmdale metrolink.
would it be less than 40 billion? what if we throw in electrification.?
still, well its would be fine for intermediate points, but id still have to fly to socal. even though I can go free on amtrak, and consider it every time, and as much as I don’t want to die in a plane crash, and hate those tiny seats and the three peanuts, I just can’t bring myself to do it. 3 hours or less and im on board. so means 220mph and that mean hsr. its gotta get done.
worthless…the whopping 3 “rail” experts have yet uncoverd another CAHSR plot to ruin there 19502 passenger trains
The ballot initiative’s only function is to provide advice… it has no teeth or power. HSR is a state project. HSR going to the TBT was in the bond measure.
Chris Daly must realize this… and it makes me think it is purely a political ploy to look good with his constituents.
Peninsula Rail 2010 Reply:
February 3rd, 2010 at 7:55 pm
Yes, the initiative would only be advisory, but it would be considered the will of the people. If this initiative goes on the ballot, it would very likely win by a huge margin, publicly humiliating Kopp. Kopp knows this game well, but Daly is challenging Kopp: “Are you feelin’ lucky, punk?” Daly would keel-haul Kopp with this initiative.
synonymouse Reply:
February 3rd, 2010 at 8:17 pm
Couldn’t happen to a more deserving soul. But does Chris Daly know that BART is behind Kopp. BART would like nothing better than to see hsr-Caltrain bomb. BART was instrumental in killing the TBT tunnel when Caltrain was ready to go ahead with it. Willie Brown was also in on that fiasco.
I wonder if Chris Daly is aware how much opposition there is on the Peninsula to the CHSRA scheme. I doubt he likes blight per se and I’m sure he would never allow a berm in his district.
Caelestor Reply:
February 3rd, 2010 at 11:26 pm
BART’s against TBT? What?
Matthew F. Reply:
February 3rd, 2010 at 11:29 pm
I’m not up to speed on SF politics, but I can’t imagine why BART would be against a tunnel between TBT and the bart station. Maybe they see it as undermining their route to San Jose?
Peter Reply:
February 4th, 2010 at 7:44 am
I swear, you seriously need to get your BART fetish looked at by some professionals.
Did BART abuse you as a child or something?
synonymouse Reply:
February 4th, 2010 at 10:27 am
Open your eyes. What do you think BART is up to with a station in Millbrae and now an extension to San Jose.
If it hadn’t been for BART there would already be a TBT tunnel. This is a territorial conflict between empires. The Peninsula is wealthy, unlike a lot of existing BART territory, and would be an important revenue generator, both in fares and government funds.
jimsf Reply:
February 4th, 2010 at 10:43 am
The Peninsula is wealthy, unlike a lot of existing BART territory, and would be an important revenue generator, both in fares and government funds”
are you out of your mind? The peninsula is no more “wealthy” than any of the other bay area counties. Every bay area county has its wealthy enclaves and they have nothing to do with how much money bart makes. Those people are the least likely to use bart to begin with.
You know, I expect that mentality from Marin Co. but San Mateo? give me a break. You ought to get out of your neighborhood once in a while.
synonymouse Reply:
February 4th, 2010 at 3:30 pm
The Peninsula is one of the wealthiest areas in the US. Just consider Steve Jobs and Larry Ellison alone. And for being ritchie rich it has a by and large benevolent attitude towards public transit. If you want least likely people try Issa-land, where they want to deify Ronald Reagan, like Caesar Augustus.
Back to school for a moment: BART stands for Bay Area Rapid Transit. Remember Bay Area, not East Bay Area. BART has always considered the Peninsula in its sphere and has wanted that SP ROW. If the CHSRA keeps harasssing PA, etc. with berm nonsense BART may still have an in.
Joey Reply:
February 4th, 2010 at 3:39 pm
NIMBYism is nothing unique to the peninsula, and while many of them may be well off, I don’t think that makes a huge difference. Oh sure, there will be lawsuits, but in the end, I think the peninsula corridor will get built, and they will accept it (plus, I have a feeling that when it starts operating it won’t be nearly as bad as they might have imagined).
If BART wants to pursue its dream of world domination, then they can put a stupid $20 billion tunnel under El Camino for all I care (well, actually I do care because it’d be a huge waste of funds). I wouldn’t worry about it though. Peninsula BART doesn’t seem to be a subject on anyone’s mind right now (except maybe yours).
Peninsula Rail 2010 Reply:
February 4th, 2010 at 10:55 am
Peter is obviously unaware of the battles in the 1980s and early 1990s over whether to extend BART to SFO or electrify and extend Caltrain to downtown SF with the future hope of HSR service. Caltrain has always gone right by the airport, so improving Caltrain service and extending it into downtown offered better service for both the airport and the Peninsula. BART to SFO was given preference by MTC and has proven to be a cratering disaster. A downtown extension for Caltrain/HSR would shorten the length of the downtown-SFO trip to a third of the time it takes BART. BART is threatened by this, and BART has never tolerated any transit competition (because it tends to lose in a head-to-head comparison).
Peter Reply:
February 4th, 2010 at 11:01 am
Oh, I’m aware of them. I just think that synonorat was abused in a dark alley by BART at some point, as he is obsessed with equating CAHSR with BART and alleging (with no factual basis) that CAHSR will be a failure.
synonymouse Reply:
February 4th, 2010 at 1:29 pm
BART just got a bunch more money from the Feds.
Even the TBT box is not necessarily a defeat for BART. If there is no track laid in the barebones box you could still lay in 5′6″gauge at a later date.
Then BART would really have express service to the airport.
http://www.kcbs.com/BART-To-San-Jose-Eligible-for-Federal-Funds/6286437
Brandon from San Diego Reply:
February 3rd, 2010 at 8:29 pm
All I am saying is that it only has one function… and advisory vote.
If it did not pass… whereas voters did not re-affirm the TBT as the SF terminus… Or, even if State voters did the same… who’s to say what Kopp would feel! Probably not very much… as his mission is to follow the will of the people. That ‘will’ right now says, “HSR is going to TBT and it needs to functionally be able to operate with trains as close as 5 minutes apart.”
jimsf Reply:
February 3rd, 2010 at 11:46 pm
The ballot initiative will pass overwhelmingly. As for Daly’s constituents, there isn’t anything he can do to gain favor. You already either love him or hate him. He’s a prgresive on the side of tenants, rent control, affordable housing and so forth. He’s been disruptive and controversial his entire term, I like him, but Im a rent controlled tenant moving into a new project – a deal that he orchistrated. Plus he’s on his way out so its a little late for him to try to “gain favor”
No his motives are that this thing is in his district, the residents, the and entire board of supervisors is on board with tbt, and so is the mayor. Daly and the mayor are arch enemies and this is the only, and wil be the only, time they agree. I doubt there has been a moment in time in all the earths eons, where san franciscos political planets have aligned to agree on an issue like they are with this.
kopp doesn’t stand a chance. The city will take on caltrans, kopp, sacramento, and the feds, with one arm behinds it back. San Francisco is not a town that is going to roll over for any of them. Don’t rile us up you’ll regret it.
The train will be in the station. period. thats the end of it. i suggest everyone just accept it and move on and avoid further consternation.
Joey Reply:
February 4th, 2010 at 12:03 am
How about we actually DO the alternatives analysis. If the AA is done and the trainbox is chosen, I’m fine with that, but until it is actually studied, let’s not jump to conclusions.
jimsf Reply:
February 4th, 2010 at 12:33 am
well ok we can do that….. its just that I feel like im holding the oscar envelope and have already peaked inside.
jimsf Reply:
February 4th, 2010 at 12:35 am
after all, “i can see city hall from my house” lol
Peter Reply:
February 4th, 2010 at 7:45 am
Do you get blinded by the gold trim?
jimsf Reply:
February 4th, 2010 at 10:53 am
(If you haven’t been in there you gotta go – freakin gorgeous in there!)
Matthew F. Reply:
February 5th, 2010 at 12:19 am
I went there and used a bathroom on one of the upper floors. It was the most amazing bathroom I’ve ever seen.
Joey Reply:
February 4th, 2010 at 7:55 am
Yeah … like you’re holding the envelope before the Academy has even made its decision…
synonymouse Reply:
February 4th, 2010 at 10:33 am
Jim is totally correct on this point.
And when have politicians ever hesitated from trying to look good with their constituents?
The way the analysis worked was that it segmented the users by distance and purpose and then estimated completely different models for each of these markets. You will see in the model coefficients segment the different models.
For the commute segment look at short trips (between regions but less than 100 miles) in the table:
6 car and 159 train riders. 159/165=96.3%
Matthew F. Reply:
February 3rd, 2010 at 10:39 pm
If this were my blog, I’d delete every comment where a response was posted without clicking “reply” below the message it was directed at…
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
February 3rd, 2010 at 10:50 pm
Or I could, at some point, get around to taking out “Reply” and “Quote” from the upper right and just leave the lower left reply. But I’m still learning my way around CSS and PHP.
Matthew F. Reply:
February 3rd, 2010 at 11:04 pm
Then I’d have to find something else to complain about. :)
I’m a much happier reader since I wrote client-side javascript (“Greasemonkey” script, or technically, “Greasekit“, since I’m in Safari) to highlight the comments since the last time I visited the site, though.
http://mattfedder.com/GKScripts/cahsr.user.js for anyone adventurous enough. It uses client-side cookies to record which threads have been read…. over a few years of reading the blog, it could turn out to be a lot of cookies, though.
Matthew F. Reply:
February 3rd, 2010 at 11:08 pm
Not that it’s perfect… it now tells me that all the replies on the Gilroy message are “new”… *sigh*
Matthew F. Reply:
February 3rd, 2010 at 10:56 pm
Table 2.1 represents one of the 5 sources of survey data used in the model. Table 2.6 is the aggregation of all data, showing that for the short commute, 11.8% of the respondents were rail users.
In table 2.1, the surveys for each mode of transportation were conducted separately. You can see that in both long trips and short trips, auto commuters were severely underrepresented.
I would be interested to know how they managed to get responses from 1355 drivers where only 10 of the respondents were commuters. Maybe they specifically asked respondents about their longest trip?
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
February 3rd, 2010 at 10:57 pm
OK, I see what you are referring to now. It still seems to be presented unclearly – was it a deliberate choice to survey 96% of the commuters as current train riders? Or were those just the results they found after doing the surveys?
Further, on page 2-7, the full summary of combined surveys in Table 2.6 indicates that for short-trip commutes, 1136 of the responses were classified as “Drive” and 168 classified as “Rail.” I am sure there is much more to it than all this, but your claim of “96% of Californians surveyed…were current train riders” seems to be rendered inaccurate by that information. Or am I wrong?
Elizabeth Reply:
February 3rd, 2010 at 11:12 pm
The presentation of material is incredibly confusing, even for someone who is used to reading these types of documents.
I have no idea of whether they meant to oversample or not. Either way, when you end up only having 6 car commuters, you would typically go back and fix something instead of pretending you don’t have a problem.
There are a lot of data sources for this project and various ones and combinations of ones are used to estimate different parts of this project.
For the main mode choice part – the part where someone decides plane, train or automobile – the only data used was that on page 2-1.
On page 3-35 it describes the data set. You will also notice that of all the commuters surveyed and all the different scenarios they were given for travel times/ costs etc 55% of the time they say they would take HSR, 33% of the time they would take conventional rail and 11% of the time they would drive. Since only about 1% of people in california take the train for these types of trips, it is safe to say that this was a somewhat not typical crowd taking the survey.
BruceMcF Reply:
February 4th, 2010 at 9:34 am
It doesn’t sound like you’ve worked out the implications in the mode-split modeling. If a small number of drivers indicate that they’d take the HSR for short trips, that would end up with a small shift in a large base. If a large number of train riders indicate they’d take the HSR for short trips, that would end up with a large shift in a small base.
The way you are talking, it sounds as if you imagine that the survey percentages are just applied directly to the current trip totals, but of course that’s not how a mode-split model works.
me Reply:
February 4th, 2010 at 12:53 pm
Modeling is complicated but the implications of poor sampling techniques have one general ramification: a messed up modeling forecast.
Have you looked at the actual model parameters that we posted?
BruceMcF Reply:
February 4th, 2010 at 1:24 pm
“Poor sample techniques” is not a charge that can be substantiated with the kind of evidence presented in this thread. All that has been presented here is a small positive return from drivers regarding the short trip market.
With a small positive return from drivers for short trips, if the forecast is “messed up”, that implies that the return ought to have been higher but because of flaws in survey design they missed positive returns that they ought to have received. Which is to argue that the sample is biased to lowball the estimate.
And I agree – the usage of HSR for short trips at the real cost of gas in 2005 would be likely to be lower than the usage of HSR for short trips at the real cost of gas today.
man, sfjim’s gonna be smug when he read this.
jimsf Reply:
February 5th, 2010 at 12:40 am
not smug. I wouldn’t. Even when we find out that tbt will indeed be the place, I’m not even going to say told you so. I won’t even say a word.ill just sit here quietly. I just see the enormous hurdles with beale, and this being san francisco, I just know how the city does things, and the first thing you don’t do is waltz into town and say the word “demolish” ESPECially, in reference to housing.
This is a little kopp game is all, we all know it. we all know hows its gonna turn out. its a money/power/pissing contest and nothing more.
I’m hopeful the CHSRA will check their little checkbox to indicate the Beale Street Alternative has been considered and determined infeasible as early as their March meeting. However, I’m thankful to my Supervisor, Chris Daly, for pulling out this tool from his tool belt. While everybody rolls their eyes and says their is no freaking way 424 residential units are going to be eminent domained to build a secondary transit station a block and a half away from the Transbay Transit Center, the possiblity is harming San Franciscans who own those units. This is why we have District instead of Citywide Supervisors …. and thank God for it.
Joey Reply:
February 3rd, 2010 at 11:24 pm
If it is studied, and deemed infeasable, then that’s fine. All that I care about is that it is really studied.
Peter Reply:
February 4th, 2010 at 7:47 am
Even if it is deemed feasible, they can still not choose it for political reasons.
BruceMcF Reply:
February 4th, 2010 at 9:36 am
If its studied and deemed feasible, and as a result the TJPA gets off their lazy buttocks and provides a design for access and egress to the TBT through the DTX and 4th and Townsend that is not so grossly incompetent that even a rank outsider can see the bottleneck problems, that would be a good outcome.
Matthew F. Reply:
February 3rd, 2010 at 11:26 pm
I’m a bit unfamiliar with the details of the Beale St. proposal. Isn’t it supposed to be all underground (cut-n-cover)? Won’t it be close enough to TBT and BART to have direct underground walkways to both?
Joey Reply:
February 3rd, 2010 at 11:43 pm
It’s basically right next door, utilizing a lot of empty lots (though earmarked for redevelopment) between Beale and Main (a couple of buildings would have to be demolished too though). Access to BART is pretty similar; if it makes a difference the TBT trainbox design has the platforms oriented parallel to Market whereas Beale as them perpendicular.
jimsf Reply:
February 4th, 2010 at 12:07 am
its not right next door, thats the problem. its close, but due to existing development it would be a considerable distance to market street and bart. Now originally folks here on the blog were complaining that walking one block from mission to market was too far, and this would be at least 3 blocks or more once you including the distance just getting up off the platform.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
February 4th, 2010 at 12:29 pm
Walking a block east on Minna to get to the exit or a block north on Beale to get to the exit is the same since the lovely view from the platform would be the same. Someone at the rear of the train might have a longer walk but that’s balanced out by the people at the head of the train who would have a shorter walk. Since the trip from 4th to Beale would be faster it might be faster to walk from the back of the train on Beale than arriving on Minna at the bottom of the stairs. People from Fairfield won’t face that dilemma since there won’t be enough capacity with the tracks parallel to Minna to bring trains in from the East Bay. I guess they can get on a bus and sit in traffic in Berkeley. I hear the view is quite nice.
jimsf Reply:
February 4th, 2010 at 1:00 pm
the only way to shorten the walk is if you had an exit directly from the north end of the platform level that lead to a pedestrian tunnel north to market. and thats unlikely. because they will design it so that you have to escalator up from the center of the platform, to the mezz, then exit, from the middle of the station and walk to market. and then, you wind up further from the fidi anyway.
anyway it doesn’t matter because it isn’t going to be built.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
February 4th, 2010 at 1:52 pm
Have you ever been in a railroad terminal as opposed to a railroad station? You could walk from the train up to the front of the train and without getting on stairs or escalators or elevators waltz into the mezzanine of the BART/Muni station. Not that San Francisco would actually do something that simple. Putting the headhouse/station/ticket mall whatever you want to call it up on Mission meana you have lots and lots and lots of air rights over the tracks to build 100 story buildings.
Donk Reply:
February 4th, 2010 at 12:13 am
I am also unfamiliar with the details and the history. I have heard lots of bitching back and forth about the neck and the number of tracks, but since I don’t know the background it all sounds like the Peanuts’ parents to me. Maybe I missed it when Rafael gave one of his great detailed analyses on this topic complete with maps. Wasn’t this studied somewhat before? What is the history? If this has already been covered elsewhere, I apoligize and please point me (us) in the right direction. This seems to be becoming a pretty important topic..
BruceMcF Reply:
February 4th, 2010 at 1:26 pm
Its been discussed in detail at Caltrain HSR compatibility blog. Check the Focus on Transbay Transit Center.
lyqwyd Reply:
February 4th, 2010 at 3:20 pm
I’m not clear on how you can claim any units will be taken through eminent domain when no study has been done.
jimsf Reply:
February 5th, 2010 at 12:43 am
jaimewalker. I want to remind you right now, that you’d better make sure you and your neighbors are informed and mobilized on a much more important issue than tbt, and that is the sneaky back door attempt by the monied interests to get rid of district elections. That must be stopped. They are planning to push a hybrid meausure that will gut the power of the people and hand city hall back to the folks who will see your neighborhood as nothing more than a blank spot upon which they can do as they please. Weve been through this before in sf, dont let it happen.
Late night fun and games – you too can take the same survey that travelers were given:
tinyurl.com/hsrsurvey
tbtbeale its further to market street. it also doesnt drop people in the heart of the FIDI the way tbt does. it also doesn’t allow for a quick elevator or escalator up to connecting buses, but instead means a two block walk with bags in tow, to get the the buses. Its also two blocks further away from the central subway and further from union square.
It also will be, and this is the main thing of all, ridiculously disruptive to exsiting housing stock and that just is a no go in sf. it just isnt going to happen. it just isn’t. pigs will fly before these building are torn down. its just not gonna happen. its just not.
Matthew F. Reply:
February 4th, 2010 at 1:06 am
That makes sense. I saw a map showing the station being on Beale between Mission and Market, essentially butting right against the BART station – but the site was ambiguous about whether that was the location being considered by CAHSR, or a station that was considered for Caltrain in the past.
Matthew F. Reply:
February 4th, 2010 at 1:07 am
(I wish this had an Edit function…) Also, it seems the two 45 degree turns onto and off of Embarcadero would make for MUCH faster travel than the two 90 degree turns into TBT, which does seem to be the strongest advantage of Beale.
jimsf Reply:
February 4th, 2010 at 1:09 am
cant put it there look at the high rises already there. – you can run a pedestrian tunnel up there, but its still a long way from center platform up to a walk way to get to a ped tunnel to get to market. and tbt is dead in the heart of the financial dist. beale is not.
Joey Reply:
February 4th, 2010 at 7:59 am
Not really … the Financial District is really north of Market.
Peninsula Rail 2010 Reply:
February 4th, 2010 at 10:40 am
Talk about wilful misunderstanding. The entire point of the Transbay Center is to extend the CBD and its big building density “south of the slot” (Market St.). Complicated development deals have been orchestrated over several years to form the biggest TOD project in California by far, which in turn would offer private financing for the TBT. The revived Beale St. Alternative would disrupt all the redevelopment effort, and it was never a serious proposal. It was Kopp’s attempt to undermine the project.
jimsf Reply:
February 4th, 2010 at 10:55 am
market-montgomery-new montgomery-mission-fremont-sansome. (The middle shifted back in the 80s. just to be clear.)
Matthew F. Reply:
February 4th, 2010 at 8:51 am
Well you could put a station there, but you couldn’t cut-n-cover, which would make it a lot more expensive.
Joey Reply:
February 4th, 2010 at 7:58 am
The platforms would extend a little farther than that, just to say. The outer ones could conceivably extend as far as Mission street.
jimsf Reply:
February 4th, 2010 at 11:05 am
no look: beale
lyqwyd Reply:
February 4th, 2010 at 3:34 pm
Jim, the map you created on google is wrong, notice in the image you linked to above the platforms extend to halfway between Howard and mission. Also, it would make far more sense for there to be entrances at each end rather than only at the middle.
Also, since the current transbay plan has the HSR platform tracks extending under the existing 201 mission building there is no reason that a Beale alternative doing the same, meaning it would be just as close to FiDi.
Finally, there is at least the possibility of running platform/tracks under Beale and/ or Main all the way to the Market street providing a direct connection to the Embarcadero BART station. I am unaware of any plan to do so, and there may be existing infrastructure that would make this difficult, but at least it’s possible.
lyqwyd Reply:
February 4th, 2010 at 3:35 pm
“no reason that a Beale alternative doing the same”
I meant “no reason that a Beale alternative couldn’t do the same”
I was thinking why dont they go up third instead of 2nd…. but after googling through it I see why. cant do it. moscone center and sfmoma and deveopments are smack in the way
Joey Reply:
February 4th, 2010 at 8:00 am
Those particular structures could be avoided pretty easily. There are plenty of less significant ones that couldn’t, however.
jimsf Reply:
February 4th, 2010 at 11:03 am
They cant be avoided – because at least with moscone, they now doubt extend under the street. there is a massive amount of underground convention space. They couldn’t make the curve to go down mission, and the the approach from third would have to run between mission and howard in ordr to line up with the tbt, and you can’t do that cuz its chock full o buildings those two blocks. It would b great if they could, but I don’t see it.
Take a look here and see if you can find a spot to squeeze through. It would be a better choice (3rd) but theres no where to get through. ( and again im pretty sure there is not space under 3rd adjacent to moscone)
Joey Reply:
February 4th, 2010 at 3:46 pm
Moscone is big, but frankly I doubt that it extends under the street (and they seem to have no trouble with the Central Subway on 4th…). Obviously, some of the buildings on the block south of the one you indicated would have to be demolished.
jimsf Reply:
February 5th, 2010 at 12:44 am
ah theres that word again. (sigh, deep breath) if you insist on using the “d” word at least use it in hushed tones in a secret undisclosed location.
Joey Reply:
February 5th, 2010 at 12:57 am
Why hide from the issue at hand? As I’m sure you know, the current TBT design will require a few smaller buildings to be demolished in order to build the terminal and station throat. It’s really just a question of what is getting knocked down for each of the alternatives.
jimsf Reply:
February 5th, 2010 at 1:19 am
but joey, and you must be new here, demolishing buildings is not something taken lightly around here. Look, I can’t really argue about it cuz im exhausted and its champagne time, but im just trying to point out that they arent going to do anything except what has already been studied and planned. There wont be any knocking down of residential towers and there wont be any wiping out of entire square blocks. butif you wanna hang on to the hope then who am i to interfere.
Cherrypicking?
According to page 18, these longish distance commuters (up to 100 miles – think CV to bay area and LA region, sacramento to bay area) are the largest travel market in California. It is also one that from a policy perspective, we really want to understand the dynamics of the demand for this type of travel in order to understand sprawl impacts (positive or negative).
There are similar data issues with the long distance business market (aka the gravy train) with oversampling of plane passengers.
Peter Reply:
February 4th, 2010 at 4:28 pm
Please use threaded comments. Otherwise it takes forever to figure out what post you are referring to.
Anybody have a link to the board meeting? Happening now…
Robert?
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
February 4th, 2010 at 10:36 am
Doesn’t appear to be any live feed, since they’re in San Diego this month.
Perhaps another useful initiative would be one that requires Caltrain to terminate at the Transbay Transit Center. Oh. Wait… that’s what 1999 Proposition H (Downtown Caltrain station) was all about. What’s left of that 10 years later? Two platform tracks (a mere 1/3 of the station) and a nearly useless single track access. If the trend continues, Caltrain will soon be shut out of the TTC.
AndyDuncan Reply:
February 4th, 2010 at 12:43 pm
My money is still on the TTC being built and they’ll use the basement for caltrain while building a 6-platform HSR-only station at beale/main with room to expand to 12 when a new transbay tunnel is built, or when the aliens from Omicron Persei 8 take over and need an underground repair bay for their landing shuttles.
Those screenshots of the TJPA presentation of the CHSRA’s plans for beale make me think that CHSRA has no intention of sharing the new 6-track terminal at beale/main with Caltrain.
BruceMcF Reply:
February 4th, 2010 at 1:38 pm
Since the TBT is designed to be used for high frequency local trains with the occasional longer distance through train, my bet is they’ll build it broken, find out its broken in 2020, then allow that when HSR frequencies start increasing, all but the all-HSR-stations service to the CV will just stop at 4th and King.
At the frequencies that will be in place when they find out that it was built broken, HSR will be able to get by with two platforms, and at a service frequency where HSR can alternate between entering and exiting the DTX, the stupidity of having a main express terminal with a single bi-directional express bypass track past the local commuter train stations in the tunnel will be an inconvenience. So based on “muddling through”, the final outcome will be the same two platforms in use by HSR in the same limited way, four platforms continuing to be used by Caltrain, a local island and an express island, and the majority of HSR services actually terminating and originating at 4th and King.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
February 4th, 2010 at 3:50 pm
Wouldn’t space aliens use the Pan Galactic in San Jose?
BruceMcF Reply:
February 4th, 2010 at 4:16 pm
Nope, Kisangani if they like the air heavier and more humid, Quito if they like it drier and lower pressure. But the Bay is too far from the Equator to be in the running, even if the EIS conditions do dictate “respectful engagement and dialogue with the earthling native peoples”.
Peter Reply:
February 4th, 2010 at 4:18 pm
Use the train box to store fuel for the zeppelins that will dock with the tower.
jimsf Reply:
February 5th, 2010 at 12:48 am
we have zepplin already. but it only flies by. doesn’t stop. I say bring back a fleet of zepplins for intra-cali transit. we can call it, ZepLink, MetroZep, or something. No? wow imagine floating along the california central coast at around 1000 ft. gorgeous!
Peter Reply:
February 5th, 2010 at 9:15 am
That’s the ticket, we can replace building HSR with a fleet of zeppelins that travel 60 knots max cruise speed. Without wind. And carry 20 people.
jimsf Reply:
February 5th, 2010 at 9:35 am
well, Im sure there are at least 20 people in cali who aren’t in a hurry, somewhere.
Seriously though, this is pretty nice, but a little pricey.
Peter Reply:
February 5th, 2010 at 9:43 am
One of my friends works ground crew for them. I’m still trying to score a free ride.
jimsf Reply:
February 5th, 2010 at 9:56 am
wow, kewwwl.. yeh cuz they charge like 500 bucks for a short ride. Im hoping one day they will lower the price so regular people can afford it.
Peter Reply:
February 5th, 2010 at 10:05 am
They’re just trying to turn even the slightest profit with that thing, I think. NASA actually contracts with them for some studies, too. But that zeppelin was one expensive piece of equipment. And they received it just as the economy tanked, too.
jimsf Reply:
February 5th, 2010 at 10:09 am
well I hope they hang on till things improve.
BruceMcF Reply:
February 4th, 2010 at 1:31 pm
Yes, the same Proposition H that required the TBT to be the terminal HSR station …
… a provision essentially ignored when designing the thing and then all of a sudden after the local TJPA fails to design it to work properly as the HSR terminal, the same local provision that the local TJPA ignored has to be respected by a statewide authority.