Comments on: Offer Comments on Caltrain Service Cuts

By: anonymouse

anonymouse — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 01:39:44 +0000

Yass, I just don’t see such a huge market for MV-PA ridership. Most of the population is south of the Caltrain corridor, and in PA, most of the employment is in office parks south of downtown, which requires a transfer to a shuttle at Cal Ave. So people would be driving to Mountain View or Sunnyvale station, taking a train a couple stops to Cal Ave and transferring again to a shuttle. At least with commuting to SF or reverse-commuting to Santa Clara County, there’s a fairly long haul on the train between the two transfers. In this case, you’ve got what, 11 minutes on the train? Driving is both faster and more convenient, and Caltrain just isn’t going to capture a huge part of this market thanks to the rather poor arrangement of land uses. Besides, in terms of revenue, one SF-bound rider is worth about two or three short-distance riders. Oh and the relevant stations for your short distance service do sort of have two trains per hour: there’s the semi-local and the limited.

Of course, in the long run, electrification and level boarding will greatly reduce the stop penalty, and adding more tracks will gradually increase capacity, as will the capacity to run longer MU trains. Ultimately once the railroad has a full four tracks, I think the final service level will be 4 tph express (basically double the current service), and at least 2 tph local, possibly 4 tph. The local tracks would also be used by 2 diesel trains for Gilroy/Dumbarton service and the express tracks would have 2 HSR trains per hour, which is all hardly a major burden for a four-track line.

By: Yass

Yass — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 01:05:23 +0000

Anonymouse,
I am proposing all Baby bullet should stop both Sunnyvale and Mountain view and make 30 min frequency. (Reverse commute, all Baby Bullet should stop at Palo Alto).

I think large number of rider from Sunnyvale, Mountain view are Asian or European, who is familar with crowded train travel in the peak hours.
No one want to travel from Sunnyvale to San Francisco (50 min)without seat. However, standing from Sunnyvale to Palo Alto (10~15min) is acceptable and it is much better than waiting at the station.
Caltrain already have long distance rider who is going to San Frnacisco. Remained opportunities to adding more rider can be short distance. Palo alto will be good destination because of shuttle service and narrow downtown.

By: anonymouse

anonymouse — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 08:21:00 +0000

Yass, what you say certainly makes sense, but assumes a decent bus network that is centered on the Baby Bullet stations, rather than the somewhat haphazard coordination between VTA and Caltrain that we currently have. What bus runs from Sunnyvale to the Mountain View station? None that I can think of, and the 22 is much too far from the station for a quick transfer. So eliminating the Baby Bullet stop in Sunnyvale would mean that more people would drive to the Mountain View parking lot until it reaches capacity, at which point people from the Sunnyvale station will just stop taking the train. Caltrain does need more revenue, but that means getting more people on trains, and those people don’t want to stand for a hour so they need seats, and given the realities of VTA bus service, it also means making the best possible use of parking lot capacity. At the peak of ridership, parking lot capacity and seat capacity were in fact the two main factors limiting Caltrain ridership. Right now the ridership is declining slightly due to the bad economy and decrease in employment, and the only way Caltrain can increase ridership is by providing a better service, which will require both more operating subsidy and probably more capital funds for capacity improvements too.

By: Yass

Yass — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 01:16:34 +0000

Anoumouse,

I know the reason why caltrain operate two different Baby bullet. I can easily imagine if traditional peak baby bullet stops both Sunnyvale and Mountain view, there will be standing room only between Mountain view and Palo Alto.
However,Caltrain need more passenger (=revenue) regardless parking lot capacity or seating capacity. If parking lot are full, they can still come to station by bus, by bicycle or by walk. Under 60 min frequency, bus delay require you to up to 60 min waiting at station. Since VTA and Samtrans are free for monthly pass holder (greater than 2 zone), frequent train will attract more rider not to use parking lot.

By: anonymouse

anonymouse — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 14:25:12 +0000

Mike: fares are ridiculously subsidized to compete with the ridiculously subsidized roads and gasoline infrastructure in a death spiral of transportation socialism. If taxes on driving were high enough to fully internalize the externalities imposed by driving (and burning oil), then Caltrain would be able to raise fares much more, and you’d see significantly fewer Sunnyvale-SF commutes and probably a smaller Sunnyvale too as companies find that the cheaper land in Sunnyvale is a false economy since their workers would have a much higher cost of living in an area that requires a lot of driving just to get the basic needs of life.

Yass: there’s actually a good reason for the A/B baby bullet stop pattern, and that is to relieve the parking lots at Hillsdale and Mountain View, by providing express service at Sunnyvale, Redwood City, and San Mateo and getting more use out of the parking there.

By: Yass

Yass — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 11:03:02 +0000

Caltrain need to cut (or consolidate) some trains from commute hours which have under utilization. Then, they can sell (or scrap) 5~10 older gallery cars to reduce maintenance cost.
These train are mostly express-local train which stop all station between SF-RWC. Re-write whole time table and run SF-RWC only local train with shorter (2~3 cars)consist. From Milbrae to RWC, station spacing are very close, which require faster accerelation. Short train can accerelate faster and more easily escape from the express train.
Baby bullet should operate each 30 min. No Bullet-A or Bullet-B kind. Frequency is more important than travel time. 65 min travel time is acceptable if Baby Bullet is more frequent. Current 60 min headway have less flexibility for traveller.
Express-Local(RWC-SJ) train need to operate each 30 min to attract potential rider from Santa clara county and from Menlo park. No limited train which skip Milbrae and complicate stop pattern.

By: Mike Jones

Mike Jones — Sun, 31 May 2009 05:26:11 +0000

Most railways see off-peak services as money makers. The trains, the track, the staff are all there for the peak so why not use them and sell some tickets? Hence why not run the baby bullets all day? Weekend and night services are more problematic, but Caltrain is well positioned for these markets only its poor frequency (more not less needed) is an issue. Isn’t this the whole premise of electrification- run it like BART/Metro? What about fares? Rediculously cheap! We still have the attitude that we have to bribe people to use transit- put them up. Example: Sunnyvale to SF is 40 miles and costs $6.00. Lubeck to Hamburg (Northern Germany) is 41 miles and costs $16 (12 Euros). Both are simple one-way peak fares.

By: Eric

Eric — Fri, 29 May 2009 16:23:28 +0000

Oh, and I forgot to mention- 55 SJ Express also is a bit of extra service between Gilroy and SJ downtown/Diridon. That segment of the corridor definitely has alternatives.

By: Eric

Eric — Fri, 29 May 2009 16:16:50 +0000

They’re not changing the crew configuration, so let’s focus on changes they will actually make. My best guess is that midday service will end up getting cut in half, since it’s nowhere near double what you’d get on 60 minute headways. They’re also looking at raising parking fees (to $3/$30 pass).

By: arcady

arcady — Fri, 29 May 2009 16:05:15 +0000

Richard, I wouldn’t be quite so quick to rant about “insane” FRA rules, especially since you don’t seem to actually know what the rules are. Metrolink (aka SCRRA) operates with just one conductor per train with no problems. You need at least one, though, because you need someone to operate the wheelchair lift or deploy the bridge plate, and yes, I know even that is a pretty silly arrangement, but it’s not something that can physically be fixed in a month no matter how you look at it.

Anyhow, for solutions, I’d propose increasing the fare, cutting Gilroy service (VTA 168/121 offer a comparable service), and cutting midday service (it’s never anywhere near full). Weekend service has many more riders per train, and I bet many more of those riders are paying full fare rather than using a pass.