Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I wouldn't call a 50% increase in taxpayer funding from 2014 to 2016 a lack of love. Caltrain doesn't need new rolling stock or electrification and it would be of no benefit to do it peviously. It isn't running trains that average 40 years old like BART is. I also wouldn't say it was all that hard. It just needed CA HSR. Like you look at the 2010 vote for $1.2 billion to electrify which the voters rejected. Well, first of all that was 2010. Secondly, it didn't need to be electrified yet. Average ridership is limited by the number of trains still today when ridership is 58,000 avg weekday and 60,000 on peak days. Ridership in 2010 was a bit over 38,000. There just wasn't a reason to electrify in 2010. It's not like it takes that long. The 2015 electrification project under CA HSR will be complete (scheduled) by 2020 by which time the 111,000 ridership might matter. It didn't matter in 2010. Now in 2015 it's a fairly logical time to be looking at it. In the middle of a severe recession when it wasn't even needed was not. I mean 2010 was when they were saying they had to cut service by 50% at the same time they wanted to electrify. Of course the voters rejected it. You also have to realize Caltrain and electrification is just boy who cried wolf. They started saying they needed to electrify all the way back in 1991 back when they were running 54 trains a day. I can't even find ridership going that far back. They just added more trains and ran longer trains which is the same thing they would have needed to do if they electrified anyway. Even today it still sits at stations pretty often for several minutes at a time simply because it's running ahead of schedule and can't depart. On time performance hasn't really been impacted by adding trains either and is also higher than BART's on-time performance. So again, why was it needed?
This is why it's boring to respond to you: you don't pivot when the conversation pivots. Even as your point re: electrification may be valid--I have no rock-solid counter argument to it--it isn't a counterpoint to what I said about Caltrain getting less love than it deserves.
Again, I point you to BART, upon which billions have been spent extending it to Pleasanton and San Jose. Meanwhile, not four years ago Caltrain funding was touch-and-go. And money that was supposed to be for rebuilding the dumbarton crossing and bringing caltrain to the east bay--a plan which is cost-effective and will be a boon for both sides of the bay--has been shifted to bringing BART to DTSJ at great expense.
And cities that rely on Caltrain to bring in employees don't want to spend money on it, complaining about the noise and the safety concerns and how it causes traffic on city streets, but ignoring all the economic value it has brought. PA couldn't be PA as it is without Caltrain and the 522 and if it was entirely reliant on cars, but even so residents and city leaders treat Caltrain and the 522 as evils.
I stand by my position that Caltrain doesn't get the love it deserves for the RoI it brings.
This is why it's boring to respond to you: you don't pivot when the conversation pivots. Even as your point re: electrification may be valid--I have no rock-solid counter argument to it--it isn't a counterpoint to what I said about Caltrain getting less love than it deserves.
Again, I point you to BART, upon which billions have been spent extending it to Pleasanton and San Jose. Meanwhile, not four years ago Caltrain funding was touch-and-go. And money that was supposed to be for rebuilding the dumbarton crossing and bringing caltrain to the east bay--a plan which is cost-effective and will be a boon for both sides of the bay--has been shifted to bringing BART to DTSJ at great expense.
And cities that rely on Caltrain to bring in employees don't want to spend money on it, complaining about the noise and the safety concerns and how it causes traffic on city streets, but ignoring all the economic value it has brought. PA couldn't be PA as it is without Caltrain and the 522 and if it was entirely reliant on cars, but even so residents and city leaders treat Caltrain and the 522 as evils.
I stand by my position that Caltrain doesn't get the love it deserves for the RoI it brings.
Yes, because your argument that Caltrain doesn't get the love it deserves hinges largely upon electrification. Electrification is the love Caltrain has been asking for since '91 and hasn't gotten until now.
I'd agree with you in the past. Caltrain didn't get a lot of love. That's not currently the case as reflected in the dollars. 50% increase in taxpayer funding over two years. Man, BART would love that. $1.7 billion for electrification, approved. Again, BART might have a bit more but it's just a bigger system. Caltrain ridership is booming now but you're talking about a system that has about 15% the ridership and saying they didn't get love because nobody electrified them for 25 years when it didn't even need electrification. Or maybe that's not what you're saying any longer. Specify your arguments and I can respond to them.
You're now saying Caltrain doesn't get the love it deserves compared with BART because some cities it serves are full of NIMBYs. I don't disagree. They didn't support BART either. That's nothing about Caltrain. There's also a huge difference in support today versus 1970. It's not 1970 anymore. You're mostly talking Atherton, Menlo Park, and Palo Alto. And it's not even that they just hate it and want it to go away. They just don't like the noise and don't want more trains honking their way through town all day long. I get the concerns, but don't move next to an airport and complain about the noise. A lot of it is just posturing. They want double gates more than they just want it to go away entirely although there's plenty of residents who just wouldn't mind if it went away. Who cares how bad the traffic is when you're commuting two miles from your $3 million home to your job and all those trains with the plebs are annoying. And yes, non-grade separated is more annoying.
It's not even about not supporting it per se but about a difference of opinion on who should pay for it. Average Caltrain rider makes $117,000/yr. Do they need to have their tickets subsidized? You may say that's a lack of love that Caltrain deserves, but BART doesn't get it either. You have a surcharge on BART as well in the Peninsula for the same reason. There's no dedicated funding source for BART in the Peninsula hence the surcharge. Regardless, they did get a 50% increase in taxpayer funding which BART really could use. BART is falling apart. 26% increase in delays over 15 minutes in the last few years. Some of that is because the protesters keep shutting down BART stations. Most of it is because BART is just old and doesn't have the money for proper maintenance. Average rolling stock for BART is 40 years old. The tracks are falling apart, the signaling sensors are all worn out. BART just doesn't have the money to do proper preventive maintenance. It's just using proverbial duct tape and superglue to keep the system patched up and operational. Caltrain is not falling apart. For a system that gets no love, Caltrain is in a heck of a lot better shape than BART is, getting huge increases in funding, and large amounts of capital investment. That's today.
BART does get more preferential treatment though. Warm Springs expansion, for example, pulled the funding from Caltrain to help pay for BART. I don't know that I can argue against that decision. It seems more useful to me than Caltrain's Dumbarton expansion was. The MTP made that decision, however. You can't blame NIMBYs in Atherton when the planning overlord decides to yank the funding from one project to prioritize another project. The MTP simply gives preferential treatment to BART as they should. It's a bigger system where the money can be better used and there's far more need for the money. I don't know that it's the best decision but they're just chasing federal matching dollars for expansions. Since there's all that free money in the form of matching funds maybe deferring maintenance on BART is the right call. Political tides change and you might not be able to get all that free money in the future.
I can't really comment on ROI of Caltrain. It's a service that's been continuously operated since the 19th century and largely unchanged for over 100 years except for recently when ridership started picking up post Caltrain assuming operation. I simply have no idea how one would quantify that. But hey, it exists. If it didn't get any love at all it wouldn't exist today at all. It would have been just another abandoned railroad track in America without support from San Mateo and Santa Clara counties. It clearly was not at all responsible for much of the growth in San Mateo and Santa Clara counties as ridership was in free fall during the explosive growth years. Regardless, they valued it enough to keep it alive.
So you have no idea that every single system in the world is PUBLICLY FUNDED so it's not SIMPLY a matter of "cheapest option possible" as IF that's so baaaadddd.
LOL the American Mentality?
I'm from PHilly and MOST people drove downtown. DECADES AGO. Obviously you KNOW that you have to take a BUS or CAR to even GET to the train stations. Or even the EL to get to the TRAIN Or connect on other lines downtown etc. THEN you get to WALK 10 or 20 blocks in your sweaty business suit in the rain, snow and be late. The ONLY people able to use the sub or El are those already living downtown and they can take buses, too. And they STILL have to walk FAR to get to the train.
Furthermore, what are you saying? They should crack open and completely disable the cities like Charlotte to bury a SUBWAY in places that nobody will even take it?
Where are the compelling destinations that require these public transit oriented projects?
If there were DEMAND, people would be willing to PAY for it. Where the density requires it, there is some infrastructure.
Irony my European ex is a international expert in rail transit LOL. None of the US proposed projects have the DEMAND.
The problem is that you view driving as "normal" and mass transit as "unnatural government intrusion" when really both are unnatural government intrusion. Our government chose roads over mass transit.
Yes, because your argument that Caltrain doesn't get the love it deserves hinges largely upon electrification. Electrification is the love Caltrain has been asking for since '91 and hasn't gotten until now.
Look, this is really a local tangent to what was posed as a national question in the UP forum, so, right or wrong, unless I have a good reason otherwise, this is my last post in this tit-for-tat.
Very well, I'll ask for you to substantiate your opinions in the upcoming threads where you state your opinion that Caltrain doesn't get any love despite $1.7 billion in capital investments now underway on what has already a modern commuter train since the '80s when Southern Pacific abandoned it which just saw a 50% increase in local public funding. I disagree with your tangent and your comparison with BART. They're not really comparable systems one being so much larger and with mixed commuter/intra-city system versus a smaller commuter system, but it's not like Caltrain is some abandoned relic like it was under Southern Pacific any longer. It hasn't been for some time.
The problem is that you view driving as "normal" and mass transit as "unnatural government intrusion" when really both are unnatural government intrusion. Our government chose roads over mass transit.
In fact, 100 years ago when it was up to the free market, mass transit was normal. Basically everywhere had a streetcar or inter urban system you could use to get around. Cars became dominant when our government decided to fund roads primarily.
In fact, 100 years ago when it was up to the free market, mass transit was normal. Basically everywhere had a streetcar or inter urban system you could use to get around. Cars became dominant when our government decided to fund roads primarily.
Streetcars have nothing to do with the freemarket. In general they were government granted monopolies, which isn't at all freemarket. NYC you had government built rail operated by private companies more than 100 years ago though. Ditto San Francisco (Muni founded 1912, a few years after IRT which was the first private operator for the city-owned rail infrastructure). That was little different in that IRT was private company the city leased its assets to to operate. MUNI was a public entity. The city wanted to extend the Geary line at its expense (bonds voted for in 1909) but the company they'd leased the monopoly rights to didn't want to operate it. They tried to put the monopoly rights up for bid and no one wanted them so they created Muni to be the operator and didn't renew the monopoly in 1912 transferring it over to Muni.
Yeah, neither Portland or San Diego are really what I'd call logical candidates for a subway either. They are, however, the next most logical candidates seeing as how everything that's more urban already has a subway or like Seattle is building it. Seattle is kind of in that boat and the subway, at least to me, does not at present make much sense. In another 20 years if it keeps building up the downtown area at that rate it is, however, it will. That's a mixed bag. That was also the rational Portland used.
Seattle has a larger downtown than Portland or San Diego [its downtown employment numbers are similar to Philadelphia, which does have a subway]. It also has more congestion chokepoints from geography and some secondary urban districts that Portland really doesn't have [U District, Bellevue]
Quote:
How much benefit would Boston really get from that electrifying those lines at what cost? BART expansion is mostly going with diesel as it just doesn't make sense to electrify it. Electrification of Caltrain likewise has long been an option but it's never made any sense to do it. It'll electrify as part of CA HSR but absent that it hasn't as it makes no sense to.
The main benefit of electrification is faster acceleration and somewhat better reliabilty. And lowers local pollution. Caltrain stop spacing is close enough that I think it would have made sense to. It's obviously more worthwhile to sink costs if the train frequency is high; it doesn't make much sense not to electrify if trains run every 15-20 minutes off peak. The diesel BART extensions are far-flung suburbs, right? I was emphasizing frequency rather than electrification. Not within the city or in inner suburbs, so not really comparable to the Boston situation. I was referring to commuter rail within 15 miles of downtown, mostly in rather dense neighborhoods. I don't see why they wouldn't support the same demand as BART trains. Other useful project would be to connect North and South Station, northern commuter rail lines terminate at north station, a bit away from downtown jobs. A through tunnel between the two would make transit more convenient and connect areas on the south side of the city with parts further north. But it would obviously be expensive, best route is right by the Big Dig, line could have placed adjacent to the Big Dig highway when it was constructed.
Caltrain runs every 60 minutes off peak, but it's commuter service so that's not that surprising. What they've done is just run longer trains. First they ran more frequent trains (baby bullets, better service), now they can't really add anymore trains at peak hours so they've added the 5th and soon to be 6th cars. Platforms are designed (now) for at least 6-car platforms with room to expand for 8 trains lengths, so you run into that issue next. 18 stations need the platforms extended to run 8-car trains, 12 of which Caltrain deems as difficult. Instead of spending $8 million on DMUs or EMUs, they just bough some used cars and will stick them on the back. Cost? $350,000 per car. It's just a temporary thing.
The electrification will be faster although top speed won't change at least initially and not that significantly (most of the route will still run at 79 mph top speed). For all stops between San Jose they're looking at 71 minutes versus current 93. Half of that is from less dwell time, however. Still ten minutes faster is nice. There's some advantages to doing things when they should be done though. For example, the 9:1 bike storage never would have happened if it electrified in 1990. Bikes were for kids back then.
Specific to Fairmount, yeah, I'm still just left wondering how it's worthwhile. 1,000 people ride it a day. There's something called cost. You want to spend a similar amount of money as it would cost to add two lanes of freeway on the high end (roughly $20 million per mile for urban areas) to shave a couple minutes off 1,000 people's commute? Uh, yeah. No wonder that got shelved. That's just monumentally stupid whether it be DMU or EMU is splitting hairs. This is why no project analysis is so important. If that's really the next best option there is out there for electrification, it's going to be a very long wait for the next project.
In fact, 100 years ago when it was up to the free market, mass transit was normal. Basically everywhere had a streetcar or inter urban system you could use to get around. Cars became dominant when our government decided to fund roads primarily.
Bit more complicated than that. Roads have existed longer than street cars or inter urbans. Electric Street cars are about the third form of public transit vehicle. Omnibuses and horse drawn street cars came first. Then cable cars like you see in San Francisco and finally electric street cars and electric trains. The first rail mass transit lines actually used steam!
Technology to make an reliable affordable automobile will not exist till the early 20th century. Electric street cars were the last innovation to public transit and ran beside motor buses as automotive technology improved. Motor buses were used in areas that had too little traffic to build an line and the US street car system reached maximum track age in the 1920ies.
By the 1930ies(long before the interstate system)..the street car companies were having financial problems. The car had already drawn off enough people that public transit could not be profitable esp. with the price caps in place.
Public transit basically was an monopoly much like an utility and regulated like one. The companies could not raise fairs or cut service without Government interference. They limp through the 1940ies due to WWII and the Government regulations limiting tires, gas, and new vehicles(no new cars will be produced till after WWII), so that scarce supplies can go to the war effort. Public transit via companies start ending just after WWII and public transit itself is only saved by Government action(i.e. the formation of government run mass transit). And this has been the post WWII reality. So just as the federal government is building the interstate system, local governments are running the bus system.
The free market has spoken and the street car was an dinosaur. Anyway cars and more so early cars can drive on unimproved roads but paving the road helps all vehicles be it an bike, car or an horse drawn carriage. The U.S. highway system(i.e. Route 66) came into existence in the 1920ies and is the start of longer distance travel by car, bus, and truck.
Inter urbans were the first to fall as paved roads now connected cities. In the 1950ies street cars are viewed as obsolete because buses can do the same thing cheaper and more flexibly than the street car. Street cars have some big downsides like if one breaks down or has an accident with an car(or pedestrian) it can stop all the cars behind it on the track. Buses could reroute and were more suitable for an world with decreased ridership.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
