BART Directors Approve Moving Livermore Expansion Ahead (San Francisco, Oakland: buy, costs)

[marcopolo666]

Originally Posted by Maceart

Caltrain needs to merge with BART to create a unified ticketing system. Also, eliminate some stops because Caltrain in its current state is still pretty bad.

Please, no merge. CalTrain is the best transit option in the area (well, after SFMTA).

As for unified ticketing, I just use my clipper card. Everywhere. CalTrain, VTA, MTA, BART, ferries, AC Transit, ...

[roadwarrior101]

Originally Posted by marcopolo666

Please, no merge. CalTrain is the best transit option in the area (well, after SFMTA).

Not sure I agree with you on this one. Yes, it is good during commute hours with the baby bullet and clean trains. After hours, they only run once per hour and only do local trains. That is not very convenient if you're in the city and need to go down to the valley.

[Maceart]

Originally Posted by marcopolo666

Please, no merge. CalTrain is the best transit option in the area (well, after SFMTA).

As for unified ticketing, I just use my clipper card. Everywhere. CalTrain, VTA, MTA, BART, ferries, AC Transit, ...

SFMTA... good... cannot compute...

SFMTA (Muni)'s average speeds are 8MPH. It's slower than walking in most cases. That's inexcusable for a city with the density of San Francisco. A BART ride from Concord to Montgomery takes the same time as a Muni ride from the Richmond to Market St.

CalTrain still has single track on some of its corridor and stops way too often to be a true commuter line (no, baby bullets don't count when you run trains only during rush hours). Merging with BART will give Caltrain a huge political boost and more money (yes, track gauges are different but many systems around the world has different guage).

[Maceart]

Originally Posted by sonarrat

The VTA is to blame for the difficulty of commuting to SV job centers. Their service is outdated and slow.

The county of Santa Clara is to blame. VTA's woes are a direct result of the county pumping money into criss crossing expressways rather than buying into the BART system.

[darkeconomist]

Originally Posted by roadwarrior101

It doesn't drop because the projected ridership is supposed to increase substantially over the next 20 years. However, having parallel lines helps mitigate the impact of this sharp increase.

It doesn't drop and this is because of induced demand. Provide more capacity, people take more trips because the marginal cost has fallen. That's an important distinction from the congestion argument, as the new lines do have the positive outcome of giving more people better options to get around. But, it does not reduce congestion in the long term.

[darkeconomist]

Originally Posted by Maceart

The county of Santa Clara is to blame. VTA's woes are a direct result of the county pumping money into criss crossing expressways rather than buying into the BART system.

There are a lot of things to blame. Not a fan of the blame game. We could blame Santa Clara County, SJ, all the voters, the VTA (which is influenced by the cities and county), developers of sprawled-out campuses poorly set up for effective public transit, companies that want those kinds of campuses...

[TooMuchData]

I have trouble fathoming this love for Caltrain. I understand Caltrain is probably doing the best they can with their limited infrastructure. But it is really quite limited. It doesn't go to downtown SF, its service is very infrequent, very slow except for the handful of baby bullet trains during weekday commute hours only, the trains are noisy, and the seats lack adequate legroom.

BART is great. Definitely the most functional form of transit in the bay area. Fast, reliable, comfortable, goes directly through downtown SF & Oakland. Some sections of track are noisy and it gets crowded during peak commute hours, but I hardly care because the train ride is so quick. Service is very frequent during commute hours, and decently frequent in the middle of the day. Late night and Sunday service is way too infrequent (20 minute headways), though that's still far more frequent than Caltrain at those same times (1-2 hour headways).

At least both BART and Caltrain allow bicycles, which is hugely useful in the bay area.

SFMTA is a conundrum. Practically every corner of the city has at least a bus stop, but due to lack of right-of-way infrastructure the only fast service is in the tunnel under Market St & twin peaks. Even there delays are common. I've given up waiting for a train after paying my Muni fare on many occasions. And once on a train it's a coin toss whether or not there will be an inexplicable delay while you sit going nowhere.

The F line historic street cars are cool, even if the line is typical Muni slow.

VTA light rail is shockingly slow. I do not understand how or why.

[HockeyMac18]

Originally Posted by TooMuchData

I have trouble fathoming this love for Caltrain. I understand Caltrain is probably doing the best they can with their limited infrastructure. But it is really quite limited. It doesn't go to downtown SF, its service is very infrequent, very slow except for the handful of baby bullet trains during weekday commute hours only, the trains are noisy, and the seats lack adequate legroom.

BART is great. Definitely the most functional form of transit in the bay area. Fast, reliable, comfortable, goes directly through downtown SF & Oakland. Some sections of track are noisy and it gets crowded during peak commute hours, but I hardly care because the train ride is so quick. Service is very frequent during commute hours, and decently frequent in the middle of the day. Late night and Sunday service is way too infrequent (20 minute headways), though that's still far more frequent than Caltrain at those same times (1-2 hour headways).

At least both BART and Caltrain allow bicycles, which is hugely useful in the bay area.

SFMTA is a conundrum. Practically every corner of the city has at least a bus stop, but due to lack of right-of-way infrastructure the only fast service is in the tunnel under Market St & twin peaks. Even there delays are common. I've given up waiting for a train after paying my Muni fare on many occasions. And once on a train it's a coin toss whether or not there will be an inexplicable delay while you sit going nowhere.

The F line historic street cars are cool, even if the line is typical Muni slow.

VTA light rail is shockingly slow. I do not understand how or why.

The point isn't so much that Caltrain is perfect, since its far from perfect. It could use more funding, it needs to be grade-separated, it should have passing tracks all along its route, it should run more trains in the off hours, it should be electrified (happening soon), it should be extended to the new transbay terminal (happening eventually).

The point is rather that commuter rail is better for long distance travel. A Caltrain-like system is cheaper and better for long distances than BART is. And will always outperform BART over long distances, mainly because of its ability to run expires trains at higher speeds (in the future potentially much higher speeds with high speed rail infrastructure improvements) and because of its passing tracks.

A Caltrain system can do a lot more with a lot less than BART. This is where the efficiency comment comes from. If you spent the crazy amounts of money on a Caltrain line that we do on a BART line/extension, you'd have a ridiculously-good commuter rail system, probably extending to Sacramento and other parts of the central valley (like the extensive lines of northeastern metros).

Even the dreaded Caltrain local runs at about the same average speed as BART over similar distances. BART's main advantages are frequency and grade-separated tracks (both of which cold be implemented for Caltrain, if they had more money).
The main limitation with Caltrain is that it has no dedicated funding. This is why I support merging with BART. This would give it more money and allow it to improve its infrastructure and the number of trains it runs.

[calicoastal]

Originally Posted by TooMuchData

I have trouble fathoming this love for Caltrain. I understand Caltrain is probably doing the best they can with their limited infrastructure. But it is really quite limited. It doesn't go to downtown SF, its service is very infrequent, very slow except for the handful of baby bullet trains during weekday commute hours only, the trains are noisy, and the seats lack adequate legroom.

Basically everything you mentioned is being resolved. Caltrain will be extended to downtown. Service will be more frequent and faster with electrification, and new electric trains will be put in service as part of that. Caltrain is cleaner and better maintained than BART. And Caltrain is doing this despite little support by the MTA, which funnels most money into costly BART extensions.

It is the HSR funds that are fueling Caltrain improvements, and having HSR will help ensure Caltrain is maintained properly. You can't just let a chunk of rail break off on a high speed rail system like what happened to BART last month during the morning commute.

BART is just not efficiently run. It gets two times as much tax revenue per rider than Caltrain, yet has no savings and $8 billion in deferred maintenance. Caltrain balanced its budget with only $20 mil in tax revenue vs $300 mil for BART. Merging with BART will not help Caltrain's finances.

[darkeconomist]

Originally Posted by TooMuchData

VTA light rail is shockingly slow. I do not understand how or why.

To answer the implied question: VTA LRT is a local trolley service built at a county scale, and that is why it is slow. It is (mostly) not grade-separated, it does not have intersection preemption, the downtown SJ transit mall has a 15 mph speed limit, and its route weaves around. Such as it is, it was never going to be fast. But that was the style of the 80s and 90s, freeway median routing in to the suburbs, street level in the downtown core area (not unlike BART trying to be both an urban and regional rail service).