Oh, for sure. After all, we already have it with BART, so it makes sense to implement something similar for Caltrain too, once the corridor becomes more viable for city residents. I didn’t intend to ding your idea — just pointing out another necessary bit of coordinated effort between agencies.

If the point is moving people it makes sense

If we’re willing to be open-minded about alternatives to tunneling under Stockton, the benefits of BRT on Third Street, as opposed to rail, become clear. The sluggishness of the T-Third is largely due to an excess of stops, and yet, in the absence of any local bus, we’ll continue to hear complaints from riders about stops being spaced too far apart, right alongside comments that service is too slow. Running different versions of local/express bus service in dedicated lanes would address both concerns.

For fast pass holders, it would require a separate fare, but as you mention, for the really fast trip to downtown, you’d have a 10 minute ride from Bayshore to Transbay on electrified Caltrain.

This is not totally on topic but is related to the T and coordinated transit planning; in a better world the idea of equity for poor southern neighborhoods would have been a coordination of the electrification of Caltrain to downtown with better local bus connections to the Bayshore station

The T we ended up with is such simply embarrassing

That said, I agree with you (if you haven’t seen it already, check out the last post of this series).

The platforms on 4th Street by King is not long enough for 3 car service, as well as other stations further south. If that’s one of the primary reasons to justify shorter platform for the Central Subway (the other reason is obviously cost), then it is not worth $1.6 billion.