The Movement to Save Caltrain
Tomorrow night, a meeting will be held at 7PM at the Menlo Park library by “Friends of Caltrain” – a group organized to seek a dedicated funding source to ensure Caltrain’s survival.
This is a movement I support, and that everyone else who backs passenger rail ought to support. Caltrain is a very important part of the Bay Area’s transportation system, but because it lacks a dedicated funding source, it is teetering on the edge of collapse thanks to the recession and state budget cuts. It’s an unacceptable situation that needs to be remedied, and a local funding source is probably the best way to do it.
Of course, Caltrain’s long-term survival is dependent on its ability to electrify its operations. That in turn requires some form of positive train control, whether it’s the much-maligned CBOSS or something else. And grade separations – which will rile up the NIMBYs – are also going to be necessary to achieve the reliability, safety, and service frequency Caltrain needs.
Already Peninsula NIMBYism has cost Caltrain an opportunity to advance its electrification project via CBOSS, and at minimum has postponed the funding of the grade separations it will need. That’s not to defend CBOSS, but instead to point out that Caltrain needed HSR funding to help itself survive. The NIMBYs have shown they will throw Caltrain out with the bathwater in order to stop the aerial structures that they have decided are more important than jobs, than making it safe for their children to be around an operating railroad, than energy independence, than the ability to commute to work.
One hopes that tomorrow night’s meeting will see some commitment to pushing back against NIMBYism and to finding workable, collaborative solutions to these questions. Still, there are other important issues to consider when talking about a local funding source for Caltrain – namely, the scope of a ballot initiative to fund Caltrain.
Caltrain is operated by the Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board, whose membership is comprised of representatives from the three counties that own the Caltrain ROW – San Francisco, San Mateo, and Santa Clara. Presumably, any ballot initiative to fund Caltrain would appear on the ballot in all three counties, in order to provide the most possible funding.
Right there you have a rather enormous problem: an initiative to fund Caltrain will fail in SF and Santa Clara counties (and perhaps San Mateo too) if it funds Caltrain alone, and not other local priorities such as buses.
It’s not that difficult to foresee such an outcome. Most voters in SF and Santa Clara counties do not use Caltrain and likely would not see it as being an important use of their tax dollars. Voters in SF County are much more concerned about Muni, which has faced service cuts of its own. It’s difficult to believe most SF voters would vote for a tax increase for Caltrain, a system they don’t use, while Muni continues to struggle.
Similarly, it’s difficult to believe voters in places like East San José or even Campbell or Los Gatos would feel much need to tax themselves for Caltrain service. As in SF, their priority would be to improve VTA services, including light rail and buses. The recent Measure B initiative from November 2008, which barely made it over the 2/3 threshold in Santa Clara County, funded not only BART but VTA as well (Note: not true; see first comment), since backers knew nobody would vote for a tax whose sole purpose was to fund BART to San José. We would also see people arguing that it’s unfair to tax bus riders for a train they don’t use. While I disagree with this premise, it would have some effect in convincing non-Caltrain riders to vote no on a Caltrain-only tax.
It’s not certain that a Caltrain-only tax would even pass in San Mateo County. It might, but then the revenues collected would be smaller and might not be sufficient to keep Caltrain afloat. If the tax is designed to be a majority vote tax, it will be difficult enough to get to 50%+1. If it requires a 2/3rds vote, kiss it goodbye – I cannot imagine how a Caltrain-only initiative would get 66.7% of the vote, even in San Mateo County.
One solution would be to design the proposition to be a funding source for Caltrain, Muni, SamTrans, and VTA. This would get very complicated very quickly, given that you’d have four agencies now involved, with each wanting their piece of the pie. Both Muni and VTA have faced persistent criticisms in their home counties, but at the same time voters have shown support for improving those services. It won’t be easy, but I could envision a successful initiative on the November 2012 ballot that funds improved Muni, VTA, and SamTrans bus service while also finally providing Caltrain with a dedicated revenue source.
It is therefore incumbent upon the “save Caltrain” movement to start reaching out right now to community groups and transit supporters in the SF and San José areas, and to start figuring out how you design an initiative so that it can get enough votes without the demands of Muni, VTA and SamTrans weighing down the proposal so that Caltrain doesn’t get what it needs. Caltrain supporters don’t have very many bridges to burn, so they would also do well to steer clear of the anti-HSR NIMBYism that has polluted so much of the passenger rail dialogue on the Peninsula.
The ideal solution would be a gas tax increase in the nine Bay Area counties that would fund all of the region’s transit systems, including AC Transit, BART, Golden Gate Transit, and even the smaller agencies like WestCAT, County Connection, and so on. It’s also time to consider consolidating agencies or other governance reforms so that there is true regional transit planning, instead of dozens of agencies pursuing their own agenda. But in the meantime, it is worth finding a way to save Caltrain.
Caltrain is the spine of an important transportation system in the South and West Bay. It needs to be preserved and a dedicated funding source is required to get us there. Still, actually persuading voters to approve it isn’t easy, and requires a proposal that integrates Caltrain into the transportation network of the three counties it serves, including providing additional funding for their bus services. It is my sincere hope that this movement is successful, because California needs to preserve and improve all of its passenger rail operations if we are to have a shot at providing 21st century prosperity.
Robert,
You are incorrect in your assessment of VTA’s Measure B. Measure B from 2008 only funds BART Silicon Valley, more specifically BART maintenance and operations. The measure is a 1/8 cent sales tax that will only begin collecting once VTA has secured its final funding from FTA’s New Starts process. This is anticipated sometime next year.
Measure B while sponsored by VTA has no funding implications for general VTA services; you may be confusing this with VTA’s 2000 Measure A which is a capital funding program. Approximately 15% of which may be used for VTA general operating services.
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
November 8th, 2010 at 9:26 am
Thanks for that – I think I did confuse B with A.
I think it’s important to clearly differentiate between sexy capital projects and less-than-sexy operating subsidies.
Right now, it’s Caltrain’s operating subsidy that all three SF peninsula counties would like to cut, at least on a per-passenger basis. The railway’s 2025 plan calls for twice as many trains per hour and as many as three times as many passengers while keeping the total operating budget almost level. Unfortunately, that’s a very ambitious target without concurrent improvements in local buses and/or light rail. There’s not enough physical room for tripling the number of parking spaces near (most) Caltrain stations.
Poorly co-ordinated funding, planning and requests for regulatory relief create rivalry between bureaucratic fiefdoms which for-profit consultants and contractors then exploit to maximize their own revenue and profits, at the taxpayer’s expense. Caltrain is just as guilty of that as CHSRA or TJPA.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
November 8th, 2010 at 10:53 am
You’re confusing Caltrain’s limitlessly insane and purely consultant-enriching capital project scams for anything that would improve the agency’s dismal operating picture.
The cretins that (fail to) do planning at the agency (and staff the Peninsula Rail Program) simply do not have any conception of a spending money in aid of rail service.
CBOSS will not decrease operating costs (or improve safety.) It will function solely to enrich the Doty-pal scam artists and scamming sole-source vendors who “specify”, “design”, “test”, “operate”, “upgrade”, “repair”, and “maintain” this clusterfuck.
Caltrain’s grade separations serve solely to degrade corridor rail operations are are utterly divorced from any notion of improved rail service to customers or of decreasing operating subsidies. (If this were not the case, San Mateo-Hillsdale-Belmont grade separation and quadruplication with a four-platform express-local same-height level-boarding transfer station would be at the very top of the capital projects and grade separation list, rather than not appearing at all.
Caltrain’s quite literally insane non-FRA rolling stock scam will do nothing to decrease operating cost or improve service. They’re not planning sub-FRA levels of staffing. They’re not planning light weight or even remotely energy efficient equipment. They’re not planning non-FRA operating rules to improve equipment and staff utilization. They’re just rewarding Bob Doty’s little consultant scammers with contracts to “specify” sole source junk that can’t even stop at the same platforms as other trains on the line and will end up costing more to operate (as they claim in their own electrification DEIR!!!!) than even the FRA diesel junk they replace. All capital downside, no operational upside. Die, Caltrain.
The only way to save Caltrain and to decrease Caltrain operating subsidies is to terminate everybody on the Caltrain staff — most especially the “engineering” and “Peninsula Rail Program” and “Capital Planning” criminals — and start over from scratch. If that means killing all rail service, even for a decade, that will be worth it, because once the current cast of clowns and fraudsters and criminals have their way, we’ll never get back a useable rail corridor for useful rail transportation anytime.
This is make or break for the environment and communities of the SF Peninsula, but the “public servants” who suck down wages at the agencies seek nothing but breakage.
synonymouse Reply:
November 8th, 2010 at 11:43 am
And, tho not to belabor the point, BART and its many friends in high places consider Caltrain an interloper standing in the way of “mission accomplished”.
brandon from San Diego Reply:
November 8th, 2010 at 4:05 pm
That is silly.
flowmotion Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 12:09 am
Not at all. BART has a warehouse full of old plans for the CalTrain corridor.
Not everything that guy talks about is as wacky as the Grapevine Base Tunnels.
synonymouse Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 10:36 am
BART’s great selling point for PAMPA is that it could feature a subway that would increase the value of the property adjoining the ROW. But that would only be possible if the hsr were outta here. Caltrain could be vastly superior to BART but I am afraid the die was cast against standard gauge ocs in the early nineties when the Caltrain TBT tunnel was scuttled by BART to SFO.
Alas, Morris is correct that PAMPA will have to take an adamant line against Caltrain so long as the latter is an aerial collaborator. If CHSRA-Caltrain were to cave on trenching and were to start immediately planning as to how to implement and fund the trench that would be a game changer.
But that aint gonna happen because Kopp and BART are behind PB-Palmdale’s intransigeance.
Peter Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 10:55 am
It’s still silly. Even if they have plans for world dominance by taking over the Caltrain corridor, they will still run into the exact same primary reason why Caltrain and CHSRA can’t/won’t tunnel on the Peninsula: They don’t have the funding.
BART can barely pay to construct eBART and Warm Springs. The only reason why Santa Clara County is getting a subway (maybe), is because they are paying for it. The three Caltrain counties would have to pay for tunneling and all the related infrastructure along the Caltrain corridor for implementing BART. If they aren’t willing to pony up the cash for tunneling Caltrain/HSR, why would they pay for BART? Admittedly, the tunneling for BART would in fact be cheaper.
Peter Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 11:03 am
Elaboration on BART to Warm Springs: The only way they were able to afford it was by raiding other transit projects, for example Dumbarton Rail.
synonymouse Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 11:17 am
There is absolutely no love lost between BART and either Caltrain or the hsr. BART’s imperial interests would be greatly served by appropriating the Caltrain-SP ROW and by terminating the hsr in San Jose. Both the Peninsula route and the transfer from and to the hsr at San Jose would be lucrative. Think about it.
While you guys are fretting about “proof” the BART plan is proceeding nicely. The likelihood of
BART south from Millbrae is definitely much greater than just a few years ago. Remember the movers and shakers involved are seasoned political pros. As Willie Brown says: never put anything in writing.
Peter Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 11:58 am
If BART wants to stop HSR in San Jose, and the “movers and shakers” want it to stop there, then a) who are these movers and shakers, and b) what have their efforts been to stop HSR in San Jose?
Peninsula Rail 2010 Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 12:36 pm
MTC/PB/BART (it’s often impossible to distinguish clear boundaries between them) believes that Caltrain’s ROW has room for both BART and HSR. Caltrain has long been regarded as a placeholder for BART, and MTC has always balked at funding that final mile of downtown extension for Caltrain. Kopp continues to carry this torch for killing the DTX. PB’s absolute HSR design requirement is for four tracks on the Peninsula, yet the two sets of tracks are completely segregated systems. The only sane explanation for this crazy system design is to clear the way for BART. BART service between Millbrae and Santa Clara is not happening any time soon, but this is “planning” MTC/PB/BART style.
The Pacheco Pass decision is all about keeping HSR from negating the need for the BART-to-San Jose boondoggle. Altamont HSR would make building BART-to-San Jose completely redundant and unnecessary.
synonymouse Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 1:05 pm
Very good point, but this will prove to be a difficult sell if aerials are retained. An upgraded and electrified Caltrain would be superior to BART and don’t you think the hsr and BART side-by-side would look patently ridiculous? I mean the hsr with its masts and catenary juxtapoised against tinny BART in blue meanie grimy gray with its dippy broad gauge and 3rd rail.
I can’t visualize the hsr and BART in a 4-track subway – too expensive and how dumb to have 2 segregated systems.
Peter Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 1:24 pm
Let’s assume, arguendo, that there is a sinister ulterior motive to quad-track the Peninsula to make way for BART. How does that square with the SFFS track arrangement? BART would essentially be completely deprived of crossovers between Santa Clara and South San Francisco. That makes no sense whatsoever.
Peninsula Rail 2010 Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 1:33 pm
An upgraded and electrified Caltrain would be vastly superior to BART, especially if Caltrain retained passing capability and thus express service, and this is precisely why MTC/PB/BART don’t want to enable Caltrain modernization. Quite frankly, they want to block it and keep Caltrain hobbled in an antiquated state. The “Baby Bullet” was most certainly not a MTC initiative, as Jackie Speier almost single-handedly secured the funding for it. MTC/PB/BART don’t care about actual transit service outcomes. They care about big symbolic megaprojects they can push to enrich themselves and their special friends. Empire-building is an apt description too.
synonymouse Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 1:42 pm
I realize that giving human characteristics to an institution like BART may seem hopelessly anthropomorphic to the younger posters but if you have observed BART in action over 4 decades you just can’t ignore the recurrent traits of hubris, envy, contempt, and those are the nicer aspect of BART’s corporate personality.
synonymouse Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 11:01 am
The substance of my argument in favor of Tejon is that it will permit the lowest level of public subsidy of the hsr and that the PB cost-risk-benefit analysis against it was politicized.
Peter Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 11:04 am
And you have yet to produce any sort of proof for any of your claims.
joe Reply:
November 8th, 2010 at 3:22 pm
So we should kill Caltrain out of spite.
StevieB Reply:
November 8th, 2010 at 4:28 pm
Mlynarik says we save Caltrain by firing the entire staff and end service leaving thousands of commuters stranded for a decade. This is a totally ridiculous idea and shows a lack of interest in finding a real solution to Caltrain financial problems. A statement so egocentric cannot be sincere.
Joey Reply:
November 8th, 2010 at 5:50 pm
Maybe it’s inevitable when you’ve seen them make the same types of bad decisions time and time again.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
November 8th, 2010 at 8:47 pm
Caltrain’s fundamental problems are not financial.
Shovelling cash into a black hole of ineptitude and fraud solves nothing.
Caltrain shutting down would affect me far more than you I promise: I don’t drive, for starters, and practice what I preach.
But thanks for your kind thoughts and deep analysis, StevieB. I’ll take them to heart.
joe Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 7:30 am
Sorry Richard, We use Caltrain on a daily basis in our household.
Caltrain’s fundamental problem is a lack of core funding. Instability forces constant churning and replanning.
Stabilizing the funding saves money and reduces management overhead.
Another problem is a small group of anti-gubberment bigots who would rather shut down a transit system than see a public service funded by, gasp, taxes.
Missiondweller Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 10:09 am
Really? Is there a nefarious right wing group hiding out on the peninsula?
They must be under deep cover!
joe Reply:
November 8th, 2010 at 3:40 pm
Not every public institution can be run as efficiently as PG&E. Right?
I mean the performance bar in the corporate world is set so low, what comparison do people have for ragging on the current system? Air travel is terrible – what’s the stellar example that makes Caltrain so poorly run?
Critics demand a say in the process and criticize the system’s being designed to accept and reconcile conflicting public input.
Run it like an airline, sorry the train is canceled and you are bumped.
Alon Levy Reply:
November 8th, 2010 at 4:08 pm
What comparisons? For a start, any commuter line in Japan, Korea, Switzerland, Austria, and Germany. Even France has better regional rail than Caltrain, despite the graffiti-tagged trains and the unreliable schedules.
joe Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 7:32 am
Wow. So the examples of better run systems are not private US utilities but government backed systems with unionized workers and stable core funding.
See?
Alon Levy Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 10:23 am
Way to miss the point. Yes, unions are perfectly compatible with efficiency. But none of those unions operates American-style. Except in France, they do not make ridiculous demands for overstaffing backed by the constant threat of strikes. And in France the way the system is beaten down by labor shows; there’s a reason it’s not Switzerland or Japan.
As for stable funding, BART has gobs of it, and so do many proper commuter railroads in the US, and still they are very bad. BART’s stable funding has led it to subvert other transit systems instead of improve transit. The LIRR, Metro-North, etc. have reasonably stable funding, and still they’re happy to run FRA-compliant clunkers on an inscrutable schedule, with multiple conductors working each train punching tickets.
Nathanael Reply:
November 11th, 2010 at 9:40 pm
Um, the UK transport unions are, right now, making ridiculous demands for overstaffing backed by the constant threat of strikes.
It’s actually quite common. I think the reason it’s a problem in some countries but not in others is simple. If you’re *expanding* the railway, then you can spread out the existing union members to more jobs, thus reducing the staffing per train and per station without really hurting the union.
If you’re *not*, then you can’t and the unions will complain.
Evans Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 9:41 am
Most of JR commuter rail in Tokyo, Osaka and other big cities are currently profitable. However, only few of them were profitable before the privatalization in 1987. They were one of the strongest labor union in Japan.
Alon Levy Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 3:20 pm
Yeah, and what they’ve done since privatization is not bust the union or cut wages, but slowly cut staffing through attrition. Nowadays, Toei (which is profitable despite being public) pays wages a few percent lower than New York City Transit; the reason Toei makes money and NYCT doesn’t is that Toei has one third as many employees per rider.
jimsf Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 3:25 pm
and I don’t know about you but I love dealing with companies with whom I have to pull teeth to get customer service! I love being shuffled through endless voicemail options, I love standing around a store hunting for help, and I love it when cost cutting means I get to stand in line at the comcast office for 40 minutes instead of 15. Its way better.
Alon Levy Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 5:15 pm
It’s not even at the front end. Toei has more station agents than NYCT. The main savings are at the back end – fewer non-revenue train moves, less administration, etc. The biggest waste in the US is usually not the unionized labor, but the managers.
It’s actually annoying. If it were a labor issue, then layoffs would be an easy solution. But it’s not, so knowing how to cut costs requires a lot of knowledge on how the management actually works, and what the company culture is. It’s very easy for reformers to do this wrong and fail horribly.
jimsf Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 5:26 pm
The guy who “runs” muni makes about 350k a year. And the voters only want to punish the bus drivers. It wasn’t the bus drivers who chose the bad tech over and over and over again. The latest fiasco are the new turnstiles .
Evans Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 10:07 pm
How about cost for Caltrain? The payment for those guys in San Carlos makes Caltrain finance problem?
Nathanael Reply:
November 11th, 2010 at 9:41 pm
Jay Walder is doing quite a good job at trying to cut through the mare’s nest of management at the MTA in NY (which has beaten previous boards and execs — remember the failure to merge Metro-North and LIRR?). I wish him luck.
Please add CBOSS to your Glossary.
Rafael Reply:
November 8th, 2010 at 1:40 pm
It was already there, but I just updated the entry to elaborate the acronym.
Yes, let’s hope efforts to fund Caltrain avoid any sort of bashing of HSR or any suggested ideas that would work against HSR. If they do, the effort will instantly die. As we know, a strong majority of peninsula folks support HSR, and overwhelming majorities to do in SF and likley in San Jose. Therefore, this Caltrain movement should avoid the debates about HSR while also assuming that HSR is part of rail picture on the Peninsula. The funding effort should probably strictly for daily operations and avoid trying to sneak in a pot of money on the controversial CBOSS or electrificaion, which could be construed as a backhanded strategy to mess with HSR. If they can achieve agnosticism on HSR, then it is an effort deserving of our full support.
morris brown Reply:
November 8th, 2010 at 2:50 pm
For sure today, a very strong majority of residents along the peninsula do not support this HSR project. That also is becoming ever more evident in the State legislature, as anyone who has listened to the Nov 4th, meeting of the Senate Transportation and Housing committee could plainly observe.
In the rain on Sunday, over 500 citizens gathered to oppose the HSR project.
Indeed, support for CalTrain, from peninsula cities, should not be considered as long as they are an ally of the Authority.
Until CalTrain understands, the Peninsula Cities are not going to submit to the HSR project as planned along the CalTrain ROW, CalTrain doesn’t deserve any support from these communities, which in fact collectively really own the system.
Videos have now been posted of the rally on Sunday (11/07/2010) Street signs are going up all over the cities on the peninsula, opposing what the Authority is trying to construct.
So, I say let us indeed hope that more and more “bashing of HSR” will take place, in fact the more the better.
Links to videos:
boondoggle part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gxmomdRD70
part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJMkFu3UUSk
part 3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_4fO2ZPn5w
Peter Reply:
November 8th, 2010 at 2:55 pm
500 out of 3.312 million in San Francisco, San Mateo, and Santa Clara Counties. Wow. That’s an overwhelming statement of “We don’t care”.
Al-Fakh Yugoudh Reply:
November 8th, 2010 at 4:59 pm
Unfortunately democracy boils down to the power of those who “show up”.
The only way to have a society free from NIMBYism is for those who have the public good at heart ( the residents who support HSR) to “show up”. Because democracy and freedom means “participation”.
To use the lyrics of an old Italian song:
Freedom is not perching on a tree.
it’s not even the flight of a bumble bee.
Freedom is not a free location
Freedom means “Participation”.
La libertà non è star sopra un albero,
non è neanche il volo di un moscone,
la libertà non è uno spazio libero,
libertà è partecipazione.
wu ming Reply:
November 8th, 2010 at 9:58 pm
um, people already showed up to vote in numbers dwarfing that tiny NIMBY protest. there’s really no point in standing on street corners waving placards when your policy preference was made law years ago, and the project is muddling along.
joe Reply:
November 8th, 2010 at 3:25 pm
You say “support for CalTrain, from peninsula cities, should not be considered as long as they are an ally of the Authority.”
So the point is to destroy anything and everything that supports HSR regardless of the impact.
Peter Reply:
November 8th, 2010 at 3:30 pm
Bingo. Welcome to Peninsula NIMBYism.
Jack In Fresno Reply:
November 8th, 2010 at 4:47 pm
300
Missiondweller Reply:
November 8th, 2010 at 7:10 pm
500? Funny it was 300 just yesterday on the news.
It will be 1,000 by next week!
Reality Check Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 10:31 am
One of the speakers said it wasn’t a TEA party rally. Well, it is kind of “fun” to try watching those rally videos while substituting “Obamacare” for every reference to HSR … and the word “taxes” for every reference to to “elevated tracks.” No wonder the speaker felt it necessary to make a point of trying to explain this was not a TEA party event.
Also, in light of my earlier comments about Brisbane’s late and sudden decision to join the PCC were validated and confirmed by Brisbane councilwoman (and ex-mayor) A. Sepi Richardson’s comments (I’m going to make a few speech … in “Persian version”, hope you can understand it) (beginning at 9:20 of part 2) . Her (and Brisbane’s) whole reason for joining in PCC and speechifying at the HSR TEA party rally is the horrifying realization that HSRA wants to build a maintenance yard on the long-vacant brownfields old SP Bayshore Rail Yard site … which interferes with Brisbane and Universal Paragon Corporation’s unfunded dream of building their Brisbane Baylands mega-development there, someday, maybe.
So to assuage Brisbane’s outrage, the HSRA (PRP/Caltrain’s Bob Doty) has announced they’ll revisit putting the yard on the ecologically sensitive SFO land between Hwy 101 and the Caltrain line (most recently bisected by the Quentin Kopp memorial SFO BART wye). Hey, it’s only twice as far from the end of the line and so would only require twice as much deadheading … but if it means the old Bayshore rail yard is kept vacant for another 30 years awaiting the fulfillment of mighty Brisbane’s we’re-a-bigger-and-more-important-city-now development dreams, it’ll all have been worth it, right?
For good background reading, Clem did a nice Focus on: Brisbane write-up on the Brisbane situation a while back.
Peninsula Rail 2010 Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 1:44 pm
Remember the ecologically sensitive SFO land between Hwy 101 and the Caltrain line was off-limits for the joint BART/Caltrain/Airtrain station due to frog and snake habitat concerns. SFO wanted to develop the land around the joint station as well. Wasn’t the ecolgical sensitivity the reason given as to why the original BART-SFO EIR with the joint station was thrown out to justify a new EIR with Kopp’s disastrous initiative to send BART directly into SFO against the Airport’s explicit wishes.
I guess this area isn’t so sensitive after all…
Having the HSR railyard by SFO rather than Brisbane would make sense if you wanted to terminate HSR around Millbrae like Kopp does…
Is Universal Paragon’s project “unfunded” or rather “unapproved”?? My understanding is that if they ever get approval from the locals, a construction loan is easily secured and the bulldozer roll.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 2:38 pm
Fun fact to know: SFO employees, under its loathesome former head John Martin, deliberately left closed drainage gates one winter in the mid 1990s in order to attempt to drown inconvenient non-PBQD reptiles and amphibians ahead of ecologist monitoring of construction. No garter snakes, no problem! Nice people.
Peter Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 3:06 pm
Wow. That’s some fucked up shit. Were there any consequences under the Endangered Species Ct or anything else?
jimsf Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 3:18 pm
well, no one really likes snakes though.
Alon Levy Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 4:59 pm
Yeah, they might get on the plane when Samuel L. Jackson isn’t flying on it.
Peter Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 3:20 pm
Endangered Species Act, not Ct
Reality Check Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 5:16 pm
BART SFO work halted due to dead SF garter snake
adirondacker12800 Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 7:00 pm
Drowning amphibians…. what’s wrong with that picture? ….
jimsf Reply:
November 10th, 2010 at 8:02 am
you think maybe they know how to swim?
yoyo Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 12:41 pm
Don’t pretend you speak for me and other peninsula residents. I’m in my early 30s and almost everyone I know support this project.
Google and Yahoo sure don’t help Caltrain.
They both provide dedicated bus service from SF to Sunnyvale/Mtv. These services take potential Caltrain riders off the public system. I’ve been working in the SV since ’91 and know the day will come when these corporate perks are lost to cost savings and the employees left with whatever public options are standing.
I assure all Paly residents, we’ll be forced to drive to work at Stanford and we’ll clog the streets if the Caltrain option is taken off the table. It’s Ridiculous to think the loss of rail will help jobs or corporations in the area where lower paid employees have to drive and pay excessive fees to park.
Dan Reply:
November 8th, 2010 at 4:53 pm
I’m a big supporter of rail, but I find it hard to criticize Yahoo & Google for providing a dedicated mass-transit option for their employees.
Andy Chow Reply:
November 8th, 2010 at 8:51 pm
The Yahoo and Google buses are not a real threat for Caltrain. These buses go into residential areas that are not easy to get to Caltrain anyway. These very same companies also run shuttles to Caltrain for those who are not able to ride the long distance buses.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
November 8th, 2010 at 8:55 pm
I wasted decades of my life commuting on Caltrain.
It is HALF AS FAST AS DRIVING door to door.
That’s if you plan your entire fucking life about the miserable infrequent inconvenient schedule and are willing to sit cooling your heels for hours because you can’t even get on the train with a bike. (And without a bike on each end Caltrain+transit is three or four times slower than driving.)
Get it?
That’s the real world. Sorry it conflicts with some la-la fairy tale fantasy about “transit oriented development” and corporate office parks suddenly turning into chocolate factories or something.
Muni to Caltrain is unusable. Caltrain is slow, infrequent and unreliable. Exurban transit to and from Caltrain is catastrophe. Put them all together and only environmental masochists (= me) will even consider it.
That’s the real world. Look at 101 and 280 (8 or more lanes of packed traffic) and then try with a straight face to claim that Caltrain manages to provide an attractive service to anything but a highly marginal market.
Carpooling works. Googlebuses work. Caltrain doesn’t work and can’t work for nearly everybody who works in the sprawville hell of Santa Clara County.
flowmotion Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 12:03 am
It’s nice to see Regular Guy Richard instead of Rail Nerd Richard once in a while :)
And you are right. What the Urban Planning 101 graduates here don’t seem to realize is that CalTrain does not serve any major employment centers, and never will. Downtown PA will never see significant development. Neither will Mountain View, Redwood City, or anywhere else. (Maybe downtown San Jose in 20 years.)
A “downtown” on the peninsula is a three block island where rich suburbanites can pretend they have some small-town character. It is not where they’re building office parks or condos. It is not a place for a major transit facility.
The CalTrain corridor really only has one thing going for HSR – some excess ROW which doesn’t exist elsewhere. All of the other arguments stink of backward justifications.
jimsf Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 4:27 pm
I have to wonder if it would be better to replace caltrain with a light rail system on the el camino. and then do hsr on the row with maybe four stops
Joey Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 4:30 pm
Oh, you mean vastly increase travel times for all but a few markets?
There’s a reason you don’t see 30, let alone 50 mile light rail lines, particularly in the present day.
jimsf Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 4:34 pm
yeh but how many people are making the whole trip and how many are doing intermediate stops?
Peter Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 4:36 pm
Well, for one, my wife’s commute would likely double from San Jose to Menlo Park. It’s already just time- and cost-competitive with driving.
jimsf Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 4:47 pm
So bart extending north for santa clara may be a good idea, with a mt view/sunnyvale station, a PA station, a RWC station, a blemon/sancarlos station, and a san mateo station.
Peter Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 4:50 pm
Not if BART can’t offer express and limited services. Especially that it’s now clear that HSR won’t be covering most of the Baby Bullet stops. Otherwise it’s a crappy solution.
Peter Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 4:51 pm
Not to mention all the people who actually use all the local stops that BART would cut. Local service is valuable and worth fighting for.
jimsf Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 5:14 pm
well if hsr has stops at sjc, rwc, mil, and sfc, there is your express service. and if bart makes those stops plus say and additional stop in between those, then there is your local service.
Of bart can take over the existing diesel service and modify it .
Joey Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 5:41 pm
That doesn’t count as local service. The baby bullets as they are make 4-5 stops between SF and SJ, nearly as many as the “local” service you suggest. The stopping patterns vary, but in the future you would probably want your express commuter service to serve San Jose, Mountain View, Palo Alto, Redwood City, Hillsdale, Millbrae, Mission Bay, and SF/TBT. Locals should of course serve many more stops.
Peter Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 4:33 pm
Ugggh. That’s just what we need: A light rail system that has to deal with traffic backups on El Camino, and is maybe able to travel at 15 mph on average. A Caltrain local barely manages 30 mph on average. You want to slow that down even more?
jimsf Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 4:37 pm
WEll whatever, Im just thinking out loud. Obviously everyone but spokker, who doesn’t even live up here, seems to think caltrain is doing a horrible job, and obviously they are about to go bankrupt so someone had better think of something.
How bout caltrans/amtrak california, could they run it as part of the state system? or again, could bart run it as is? does anyone want to take it over?
Nathanael Reply:
November 11th, 2010 at 9:45 pm
For HSR, however, not serving any employment centers “on the way” is not a problem — allows for fewer stations, more express runs.
Fact is that most of the Caltrain stations need some kind of strong westbound service connected to them, due to the location of Caltrain on the east side of the Peninsula. But try to get the silly little balkanized municipalities to provide some sort of Key System…. sigh…
Spokker Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 12:52 am
I think Caltrain does a pretty good job.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 3:51 pm
You have to get out more.
This San Franciscan and obvious rail supporter, is not going to vote to pay for caltrain. I live in SF, I rely 100 percent on muni. Any additional transit pennies out of my pocket are to go to muni only. I plan to live here till retirement and maybe beyond that and have no intention of ever buying another car. Caltrain is on its own. They’d better figure it out but don’t call me.
J. Wong Reply:
November 8th, 2010 at 7:04 pm
So you want an additional 37000 cars daily on the roads in SF trying to get in and out? Good luck with that!
jimsf Reply:
November 8th, 2010 at 7:08 pm
doesn’t matter to me. I don’t drive and if they can’t get in and can’t park, they’ll go elsewhere, which is even better!
J. Wong Reply:
November 8th, 2010 at 8:55 pm
Oh, so you walk because you never get stuck on a bus in traffic.
jimsf Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 4:53 am
Mostly I walk yes. I take the inbound and outbound underground, the 1,2,5,14,19, and 38. I took my first muni ride in 69, and have been a regular user since the early 80s, the only real problem is the occasional tunnel back up which is annoying. Overall though it pretty good.
Donk Reply:
November 8th, 2010 at 7:42 pm
Jimsf only cares about what benefits him directly. All of his comments have this same tune. Unions are great because he has a union job. He only supports certain routes because he has friends in those places. If he owned a house in Atherton near the tracks and he owned a car, he would oppose HSR because he would think it would ruin his property value.
jimsf Reply:
November 8th, 2010 at 7:53 pm
Well that last part is definitely not true. And by the way. So what. Do you think someone else is going to look after your interests or do you have to make sure you look after your own? Im just honest about it. As far as union jobs, its not just for me. I have tried to convince the cleaning people in my building to join the union that wants them. I have tried to convince several friends to go for union jobs because the jobs they have treat them and pay them like crap. I don’t like seeing anyone being paid poverty wages for hard work. As for the routing of hsr and having friends along the route. I have one friend in fresno. No one else I know lives anywhere near the hsr route. And the friend I have in fresno is not someone I hang out with or even talk to more than a few times a year. So, Donk, you don’t know what you’re talking about. And if I had atherton money, atherton is the last place Id live. I have much better taste and there are no plans to run trains through sea cliff.
Missiondweller Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 10:19 am
Just keep in mind ALL union jobs require some economic subsidy from the public. If its a public union job its the taxpayers that subsidizes your pay and benefits with more taxes. If its a private union job its subsidized with higher prices for whatever product you produce.
Union largesse is paid for by someone…..just not you.
jimsf Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 3:11 pm
yes because I don’t buy products, fly on planes, stay in union staffed hotels, pay taxes, but instead live an alternate universe where I don’t pay for anything.
As for the high costs, those costs are for higher wages and I do not expect people to work for shitty wages just so I can have something cheap. I
‘m happy to pay more for something from a company who’s employees have a living wage and health care.
People talk about unions as if they are some kind of foreign terror group or something. Those people are your fellow working americans, your neighbors, the check out gal at the market, etc, you think I only care about myself, at least I don’t expect anyone to be my bitch so I can save a 10 cents on my pot roast.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 3:37 pm
I can vouch that unions aren’t necessarily the horrors some others make them out to be.
I used to be involved in a railroad roundhouse restoration project, but had to quit for a combination of health reasons and, let us say, political ones–specifically, I couldn’t get the management to listen to some things I had to say, and got tired of talking to rocks. Having said that, the management is still, well, OK, although some things turned out not as well as we had hoped (a big problem is that grant and donation money has dried up in the economy, and planning was somewhat shortsighted, partially due to an almost emergency preservation status for the project in its early stages).
Part of the work that has been performed included a lot of brick wall restoration with unsealed bricks, which expand and contract in the rain, and thus require an old-style mortar with some give to it. We wound up hiring a contractor with union bricklayers (and incredibly, they had the low bid to boot), and those guys worked, worked, worked. I got to watch them for a while, and the speed with which they could make repairs to the walls, which included trimming bricks to fit in some strange spots, was quite impressive. These guys had gone to a trade school and had worked as apprentices before coming onto this job; they knew their stuff.
As it happens, this roundhouse and repair shop facility has quite a bit of history, including an important role in labor history. In the summer of 1877, in response to a recession of that time, the railroad industry was cutting pay, and many workers were reduced to starvation. On the logic that they might as well not work and starve vs. work and starve anyway, they went on strike. This strike, which apparently started in Martinsburg, W.Va., eventually spread nationwide, and became the first national labor uprising in this country’s history. It would turn violent in several places, most notably Pittsburgh, and was eventually put down with the US Army, but it rattled a lot of people, and the more thoughtful of the capitalist class began to question things. On the B&O, where this started, the railroad later began its own pension plan. Its basic principles would later have some influence in the Social Security Act of the 1935.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Railroad_Strike_of_1877
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltimore_and_Ohio_Railroad_Martinsburg_Shops
http://www.martinsburgroundhouse.com/
Donk Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 10:57 am
I live in socal and drive a car and rarely take public transit. Not that I am perfect, but I support (well planned) hsr, 30/10, etc bc I am tired of the polluting and paving over of our beautiful state and country. We have literally ruined the country in 50 years. This madness must end and we must change our ways and set an example to convince the rest of the world to do so as well.
Point is that you are only out for yourself and frequently miss the bigger picture.
jimsf Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 3:43 pm
I am not only out for myself I don’t know why you get that idea. I am no more going to pay for caltrain than I am going to pay for central costa contra transit or vta. I have muni to worry about. Nor would I expect santa clara county to implement and added tax to fund muni. Caltrain and its supports need to figure out a way to save their service without stealing gold out of the basement of san francisco’s mint.
Peter Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 3:47 pm
But Caltrain serves SF, San Mateo, and Santa Clara Counties. Why shouldn’t all three counties pitch in to pay for it? Because it also goes into other counties? That’s dumb. None of those counties is insular. There are many people who live in one county, work in another, and frequently travel to the third.
jimsf Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 4:21 pm
Well put it on the ballot and see what happens, doesn’t matter to me. But it it wont pass in sf. you’ll see.
Donk Reply:
November 10th, 2010 at 10:46 am
Anyway I don’t know why I care as long as you support HSR.
jimsf Reply:
November 8th, 2010 at 7:54 pm
do you live in SF?
adirondacker12800 Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 6:58 pm
Then no more taxes from people in the rest of the US for BART extravaganzas either. I don’t know anybody in Warm Springs and I doubt there’s anything there that I want to see….. And the people who do live in San Francisco but who never use MUNI, why should they pay taxes so you can live without a car? How about San Franciscans who want to go to Palo Alto? …
jimsf Reply:
November 10th, 2010 at 10:52 am
Well the only san franciscans who want to get to palo alto are the annoying ones who work there and live here cuz they think its cool. They need to go live there instead. They are taking up valuable space.
Man the Bay Area is messed up. It really amazes me how much the egotistical SUV drivers in LA have gotten everything figured out and how the treehuggers in the Bay Area are falling behind. LA is the megalopolis of the future.
All we really have left to do is somehow get the Green Line connected to Norwalk and get a viable connection to LAX and maybe the Red Line to Burbank.
Missiondweller Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 10:21 am
Meanwhile in SF we cannot even get our single subway (Market St) operating efficiently.
jimsf Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 3:12 pm
you just keep on telling yourself that and everyone else to0. Don’t want ‘em here.
Nathanael Reply:
November 11th, 2010 at 9:48 pm
I think things hit rock bottom in LA — in terms of terrible transportation and car overdosing — sufficiently long ago that people sort of wised up.
You never hit rock bottom in the Bay Area, so most never developed that “My GOD, we must DO SOMETHING” attitude…
I think it is obvious that any revenue measure for Caltrain needs to include local transit. Not only it makes political sense, but it would also build a cohesive regional transit network and ensure equity among different regions.
Caltrain currently uses AM boarding formula to split operating subsidies, as a way to ensure each county is paying their fair share and not cross subsidize each other. I think such formula should apply even with dedicated funding. That means given that SF has fewer AM Caltrain riders, a higher portion of the tax dollars from SF would go back to Muni operation or other forms of transit in the city.
Caltrain is a form of transit that cannot be substituted by local transit. If Caltrain ceased to exist, which local transit agency would be provide cross regional bus service? VTA could run a bus to downtown SF to take Santa Clara County residents working in SF. Muni could run a bus to take SF workers to the Silicon Valley. But would that be anywhere as efficient as keeping Caltrain? Over the decade, Caltrain has improved efficiency and farebox recovery whereas all other local transit systems have declining efficiency.
Drunk Engineer Reply:
November 8th, 2010 at 10:51 pm
Andy,
If and when Caltrain ceases to exist, it will be BART that replaces it. Caltrain’s lack of interest in TBT access, the segregated platforms, incompatible signal systems, the various ways Caltrain is attempting financial suicide, and the brouhaha over the nonsensical “Mid-Peninsula” stop — it is obvious BART replacement has been the plan all along.
Andy Chow Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 12:33 am
…as if BART will do it for free. BART as a political entity does not cover San Mateo and Santa Clara counties. For that agency to expand tracks outside the district, San Mateo and Santa Clara counties will have to cough up all the costs and then some.
Stop this BART replacement nonsense. It serves nothing but an excuse not to do anything. Commuters need transportation up and down the corridor everyday. Regular riders aren’t interested in engineering details and conspiracy theories.
I know that you and others got quite stressed about those HSR plans, with segregated platforms and the like. I am honestly not too concerned about it. I have seen enough transit projects having to be redesigned and reapproved over the years. As much as I support HSR and displeased with the NIMBYs, the work produced by the HSRA is not realistic. There’s no point with all these conspiracy theories because those people aren’t that smart to have one. What I would not want to see is to have a “perfect corridor” scenario be used as an excuse for not doing shorter term upgrades including electrification.
jimsf Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 4:49 am
“As BART celebrated the 50th anniversary of its creation by the state legislature, the organization’s management announced their plans for the next 50 years. Their vision includes adding a four-bore transbay tube beneath San Francisco Bay that would run parallel and south of the existing tunnel and emerge at the Transbay Transit Terminal to provide connecting service to Caltrain and the proposed future California High Speed Rail system. The four-bore tunnel would provide two tunnels for BART and two tunnels for conventional/high-speed rail. BART’s plan focus is on improving service and reliability in its core system (where density and ridership is highest), rather than extensions into far-flung suburbia. These plans include: a line that would continue from the Transbay Terminal through the South-of-Market, northwards on Van Ness and terminating in western San Francisco along the Geary corridor, the Presidio, or North Beach; a line along the Interstate Highway 680 corridor; and a fourth set of rail tracks through Oakland.[2″
Joey Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 6:59 am
What’s the source on this?
Peter Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 9:11 am
wikipedia
Joey Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 3:22 pm
Which in tern references this SFGate article. This is all from 2007 though.
Peter Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 3:25 pm
See this from today, though.
Peter Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 9:21 am
I think all of those plans have died a quiet death. Instead we get Warm Springs, Santa Clara and Livermore.
Peter Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 9:48 am
And, as of today, by absolute chance, the new transbay crossing gets possible new life: Fresh study possible on transbay crossing
Peter Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 9:27 am
None of those are listed in BART’s projects.
jimsf Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 3:15 pm
Thats because they are not official plans yet but the ideas floating around at bart. Experience tells me that if you here about now, it will happen. down the road yes, but rest assured, its on the list.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 4:35 am
I’m from the east, and am not really familiar with Peninsula rail history, but I’m curious–what existed for local transit back in the “goodle days?” I know Los Angeles had the Pacific Electric and Los Angeles Railway systems, San Francisco proper had and has Muni, there were electric services out of Oakland (Key System, Sacramento Northern, and some electrified Southern Pacific trackage), and Northwestern Pacific had electric service, too. But what ran south of San Francisco, other than what were then SP’s steam-powered commuter trains? Did Palo Alto, Atherton, Gilroy, Menlo Park, et al, ever have local street railways or interurbans? And are there any plans to bring any of this back to connect with Caltrain and HSR?
rafael Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 7:10 am
The peninsula was home to of a lot of fruit orchards in the 1960s and 70s. Those shrank to almost nothing as the core of the local economy shifted to semiconductors, computers and software development. Afaik, there was never any passenger rail service other than SP’s trains up to SF (succeeded by Caltrain), until VTA built a light rail line out to Mountain View.
Connecting mass transit in the peninsula consists of public buses and corporate shuttles.
Some, especially but not only K12 and University students, use bicycles for short-distance trips. About 8% of Caltrain riders take their bikes along on the train, others park them in locked cages. Afaik, electric bicycles have not yet caught on in the Bay Area they way they have in China and to a much lesser extent, Europe.
Peninsula Rail 2010 Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 12:12 pm
Much of the mass suburbanization of the Peninsula happened between the 1920s and 1960s. Defense industries appeared during and after WWII, and the nascent computer industry emerged directly out of these government investments. Anti-growth movements were already alive and active on the Peninsula by the 1970s. Before the 1920s, Peninsula communities were mostly made up of wealthy estates whose owners commuted on the SP “Commutes” into San Francisco (industrialists, financiers, RR executives, etc) and their servant class living near the SP depots. The Peninsula was considered quite exclusive — and intentionally so — thus the Peninsula has a long history of excluding others. Most commercial farming was in the Santa Clara valley, which has much more arable land.
Rafael is completely wrong about the lack of passenger rail service other than the SP before VTA’s Tasman line extension to MV. Time to brush up on Bay Area transit history before idle speculation.
jimsf Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 3:17 pm
not too nitpick rafael but the orchards were more silicon valley/santa clara valley(county) not as much on we consider to be the peninsula here. ( San mateo county) SAn mateo county has been urban along the rail line since the war. Prior to that, is was farming. artichokes were a specialty.
wu ming Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 8:42 am
re. “goodle days” – another john hartford fan, i see.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 4:03 pm
Of course, isn’t everybody? :-)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hartford
http://www.johnhartford.com/
I must be a curious duck. I read about guys like Hartford and the Seldom Scene, and the critics call them musical revolutionaries, yet I think the music sounds traditional, old fashioned, like it is ancient, yet it really isn’t–Bill Monroe, for instance, in many ways invented bluegrass in the late 1940s. And it’s equally interesting that the “new grass” of Bela Fleck and John Hartford sounds right at home with the classical stuff from Flatt & Scruggs. Maybe what was revolutionary about the music was that it was original in composition and tradtional in sound–it didn’t try to be revolutionary (rock’s the thing, get out the way you squares), and at the same time it respected its roots without being just a copy.
There’s a lot to be said for such an approach, and not just in music.
Wu, did you get to see a concert film called “Down From the Mountain?” This was a filmed concert of many of the performers and the music from the film, “Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?” and of course Hartford was in this.
He had been suffering from that brain cancer at the time, and would die about a year after the concert. What is strange is that he plays a couple of versions of “Man of Constant Sorrow,” and the mournful one that he does solo on the fiddle is erie. He has this strange look in his eyes–not sad, more like angry, maybe, or determined. I never had the chance to see him in person, but did see a number of televison spots with him, and he had never looked like that before, and didn’t look like that anywhere else in this film. Was the cancer on his mind as his fiddle howled out that song of constant sorrow?
Hartford loved riverboats, especially if they were properly powered by steam, of course. I’ve had this up before, but I think it’s worth another look, it’s some comments on the Delta Queen from Railway Preservation News (like me, apparently many of its members have an interest in old boats and ships, too).
http://server.rypn.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=30374
I particularly like the closing comment made by one David Dewey of Oroville, Ca., who closed his statement with, “Paddlewheelers run a lot slower than trains, but they are still a very civilized way to travel!”
Enjoy.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 4:12 pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lp1VlWpNDt0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeJrP-9xf2A&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMI5wR2P9jQ&feature=related
D. P. Lubic Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 4:14 pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hfmr-Zn_nRI&feature=fvw
Andy Chow Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 10:38 am
Prior to Caltrain, there was SP. Prior to SamTrans, there were municipal buses and Greyhound suburban service. There was passenger rail service along what is the current Foothill Expressway through Los Altos and Cupertino. There was an interurban line from Downtown San Mateo to Downtown SF via Daly City and Mission Street.
What were SP and the interurban are pretty much now Caltrain and BART.
Nathanael Reply:
November 11th, 2010 at 9:50 pm
That Foothill Expressway route sounds like it could sure be useful these days.
StevieB Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 2:04 pm
Palo Alto had the Toonerville Trolley electric streetcar on University Avenue in the early 20th century. Probably was replaced by a bus with the rise of the gasoline engine. Now that the gasoline era is in decline streetcars are being built in cities across the USA. Unfortunately most streetcars have to be imported from Europe. The only american manufacturer I know of has only gotten orders for 12 streetcars, not enough to make a profitable company.
Peter Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 2:14 pm
Well, Siemens builds them in Sacramento. I don’t think that qualifies as “imported” from Europe.
StevieB Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 3:02 pm
It depends on what you call streetcar, light rail, and tram. Most of the street running tram lines built have little european cars.
OT. As the counting of provisional and absentee ballots continues, HSR supporter Jim Costa is within 149 votes of victory. With the bulk of the near 50,000 votes to be counted in Kern County and the City of Fresno where he is favored, it’s looking good that he will return to Congress.
StevieB Reply:
November 8th, 2010 at 11:09 pm
If it is that close then the probability of a recount is very high.
This is GORGEOUS!!!
Bay Area loses out on high-speed rail
jimsf Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 4:32 pm
My favorite reader comment-
4:55 PM on November 4, 2010
Here’s a suggestion, turn off the San Franciosco-controlled-water to the peninsula. See how fast they agree to a rail line then
Jim Wunderlich Reply:
November 10th, 2010 at 1:26 pm
Oh jimsf, how could you leave off the reply to that reader comment?
5:06 PM on November 4, 2010
Too bad that SF controlled water is stored in San Mateo county ;-P
Are there no investors interested in Caltrain? I mean, that a pretty good system in oen of the most populous areas of the nation. On top of that, you have HSR coming soon that would increase ridership. Why would anyone (public and private) not be interested in Caltrain?
Caelestor Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 9:39 pm
You do realize that it, like all other public transport systems in the country, loses money, right?
Out of college, money spent
See no future, pay no rent
All the money’s gone, nowhere to go
D. P. Lubic Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 4:19 pm
Spokker, just for fun, go up a little, check out my responses to Wu in which he asks if I’m a John Hartford fan. I am, of course, and I think you might appreciate his music and humor, too.
Adirondack did you hear anything about this over there?
By the way I saw an interview with the jersey guy who killed it. Turns out he made sense. I guess normally the state match is 20/80 fed. But in this case jersey was being expected to pay for this huge project at 70 percent and with no help from ny or anyone else in the region. Thats really not fair. No wonder he had to say no.
Joey Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 3:34 pm
The final design of ARC was rather problematic as well, much in the same way that the current TBT design is problematic.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 4:18 pm
It’s quite normal for metro NY to be screwed royally when it comes to the Federal government funding mass transit. Having the Feds kick in 30 percent was considered normal. In nice round numbers the funding was split three ways, one third from NJTransit, one third from the Federal government and one third from the Port Authority of NY and NJ. The Port Authority is rolling in dough, they run the world’s busiest bridge the George Washington Bridge and make a respectable amount on the tunnels and other bridges. They run the airports which brings a bit of money and have real estate interests that are profitable… they own the World Trade Center site.
It needed to open in the 90s when the tunnels reached capacity. Stopping the project just puts it off for another 5 or 10 years while gridlock just gets worse.
jimsf Reply:
November 9th, 2010 at 4:23 pm
Just reporting what the guy said. I have to agree that jersey shouldn’t get stuck with the bill. Unless they say, made sure that only newjerseyans/ites whatevah, were hired to do all the work.
Nathanael Reply:
November 11th, 2010 at 9:53 pm
Boy, that’s dishonest of Christie. The 80% federal funding is generally only for HIGHWAYS and ROADS, thanks to decades of bias. Bias pushed by Republicans. And Christie, who is a big advocate of more very expensive roads, knows this. And Christie is pushing the construction of roads the feds won’t even consider funding because they’re not cost effective at all…
The ARC project had severe design problems. Christie *could have* ordered *his* department of transportation to redesign it to fix the problems and make it cheaper. Instead he killed it and is telling different stories every day about why. The first, and probably most honest, was that he didn’t like trains and wanted more roads.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
November 12th, 2010 at 3:40 pm
The last major roads completed in New Jersey were the “missing link” parts of I-78 and I-287. Took 30 years to get a final alignment approved. Rumor has it that I-78 cost a million dollars a foot to build through Union County. … he doesn’t like trains because not liking trains annoys the dirty farking hippies. I doubt there’s much thought behind it.
Amtrak adding 11 trains – for a total of 51 – between Seattle and Portland Thanksgiving week.
You know, cuz no one rides trains.
Nathanael Reply:
November 11th, 2010 at 9:54 pm
All you need is almost-as-fast-as-driving, and reliable service. The extras actually run much slower than the regular trains (4:15 instead of 3:30), but Amtrak still expects to fill ‘em up — what does that say?
adirondacker12800 Reply:
November 12th, 2010 at 3:43 pm
They fill up the extras on the NEC every year. Have been since there was an Amtrak and before that the Penn Central and Pennsylvania RR. …. there’s a reason why Amtrak has MARC, SEPTA and NJTransit equipment certified for service between NY and DC. People who book on the extras are likely to be confronted with commuter equipment when they arrive at the station.
OT: I thought readers here might enjoy this. Stanford PD undergrad students were asked how to improve the Caltrain passenger experience and they made some videos about their ideas.
http://stanfordme115a.wordpress.com/2010/11/01/team-caltraingers-dp2-final-cut/
http://stanfordme115a.wordpress.com/2010/11/03/caltrainimal-house-final-video/
http://stanfordme115a.wordpress.com/2010/11/01/the-nocturnals-final-video/
http://stanfordme115a.wordpress.com/2010/11/01/homework-10-colorful-caltrain-team-nomad/
http://stanfordme115a.wordpress.com/2010/11/01/final-video-team-hikari/ http://stanfordme115a.wordpress.com/2010/10/31/cdk-design-homework_10/
http://stanfordme115a.wordpress.com/2010/11/01/midnight-express_home-work_10/
http://stanfordme115a.wordpress.com/2010/11/01/loco-motive-video/
http://stanfordme115a.wordpress.com/2010/11/01/all-aboard-final-video/
http://stanfordme115a.wordpress.com/2010/11/01/alert-me/