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Caltrain shows why every region should be moving toward regional rail

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Re: Caltrain shows why every region should be moving toward regional rail

#31

Post by jasonfarnon »

nxobject wrote: post #14
rconti wrote: post #5

It's notable that the annual ridership is up 47% in the FY ending June 2025 vs the FY ending June 2024, when electrification was only complete in September 2024-- in other words, it's not even a full year's worth of ridership increase. On the flip side, I find it shocking that ridership is still only 60% of pre-pandemic levels. Anecdotally, the increased service is a game-changer. Speed matters, too, a lot, but the f…

> On the flip side, I find it shocking that ridership is still only 60% of pre-pandemic levels. My understand is that it's been true of commuter rail everywhere - e.g. a Twin Cities commuter railroad has shut down as well due to declining ridership. https://www.progressiverailroading.com/passenger_rail/news/M... Here's a relatively rigorous report from the GAO synthesizing cross-US experiences: https://www.gao.gov/bl…

" find it shocking that ridership is still only 60% of pre-pandemic levels."

Do we know how much of this 47% is due to electrification vs just post-pandemic trend?

Re: Caltrain shows why every region should be moving toward regional rail

#32

Post by mjg59 »

sanex wrote: post #28

So RTO started happening around the same time they electrified and ridership is on its way back up to pre pandemic levels. I don't really care if Metra is diesel or electric if I need to get into the office.

The transition enabled faster and more frequent service, which is something you probably do care about if you need to get into the office and are deciding how to get there.

Re: Caltrain shows why every region should be moving toward regional rail

#33

Post by quotemstr »

jerlam wrote: post #27
adastra22 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They will soon connect in San Jose.

I wouldn't consider "soon" to mean ten years. Six miles, 12 billion dollars, opening in 2036. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Valley_BART_extension

What's the holdup? Do they need to source more 5.25 inch floppy drives?

Re: Caltrain shows why every region should be moving toward regional rail

#34

Post by jcranmer »

Polizeiposaune wrote: post #11
pfannkuchen wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It goes in one direction, turns around, and goes in the other direction. To be fair, the peninsula is basically a long hallway. I’m not really sure where else it would go?

Long Island is even more of a long hallway than the peninsula. The LIRR manages to have multiple trunks and something like 10 different branch lines. One thing that made it possible is LI is much flatter terrain than the peninsula.

The main trunk lines are in Long Island are about 3-4 miles apart. Northwest of around Cupertino or so, the mountains edge too close to the bay shoreline for you to make a second trunk line viable. Your best bet would be plonking a line around about 85, but the right-of-way doesn't exist to actually hook that line up to the existing line in any useful way.

And outside of that, basically everything you'd consider plonking another path already exists with some service: BART runs up the east shore of the bay, as it does west of San Bruno Mountain. You have two mountain crossings covered by BART and one by ACE. The main missing things are curving BART back into San Jose and reactivating the Dumbarton Bridge.

Re: Caltrain shows why every region should be moving toward regional rail

#35

Post by [deleted] »

quotemstr wrote: post #33
jerlam wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't consider "soon" to mean ten years. Six miles, 12 billion dollars, opening in 2036. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_Valley_BART_extension

What's the holdup? Do they need to source more 5.25 inch floppy drives?

[deleted]

Re: Caltrain shows why every region should be moving toward regional rail

#36

Post by bilbo0s »

m463 wrote: post #23
viccis wrote: post #12

The US generally doesn't build big things like this any more.

big things seem to require a blank check.

Yep.

Totally disingenuous to say, "Hey! Look at the richest region in the US! They have electric trains. Why can't we?"

Well, make my state the fourth largest economy in the world and we'd have electric trains too.

Re: Caltrain shows why every region should be moving toward regional rail

#37

Post by SamDc73 »

quotemstr wrote: post #2

Caltrain is functional, I guess, but it's one linear system. It doesn't even have express tracks. (It has a few four-tracked overtaking areas, but nothing pervasive.) Inside, basic electric power outlets are hard to find. Grade separation? Ridiculous fantasy. The route map hasn't expanded since 1992. Yeah, they've electrified the system. Congrats, I guess? The system is still a glorified people mover. It goes in one…

> If you want a half-decent model, at least look at NYC

I don't have the data, honestly, but isn't NYC (and it's surrounding cities/suburbs) more dense than the Bay Area?

In SF (the city) transpiration is quite decent because it's dense; single family houses and public transpiration together is a very very tricky to pull; you have to choose one or the other and most people would rather live in a family house than an apartment/condo with good transpiration

Re: Caltrain shows why every region should be moving toward regional rail

#38

Post by mceachen »

baby wrote: post #22

The Caltrain sucks though because taking a car is so much more fast/practical. I must have taken it once in 5y because it's just so far out in the city and not easy to access (and then super slow). People in Europe take trains because it's a better alternative than driving! Make subways land right in the train station in SF, then make the train faster, then you have something useful. On the other hand I agree with th…

The big value to me as a BART/Caltrain rider was the ability to avoid traffic and avoid parking hassles within SF. In SOMA, at least, street parking is mostly metered 4 hours max, and private parking is $30-60/day.

Re: Caltrain shows why every region should be moving toward regional rail

#39

Post by jerlam »

jasonfarnon wrote: post #29
jerlam wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would expect a regional system to connect an entire regional area. Caltrain connects two parts of the Bay Area: San Francisco and the South Bay. BART connects the entire East Bay to San Francisco. In a functioning system, they would both just be legs and not two completely separate systems. The only place they connect appears to be in Millbrae and not near any large hubs.

Is the argument just that the MNR and NYC subway, or Boston's T and commuter rail, are better integrated than BART and the Caltrain? Seems pretty great now but then I remember before the renovations at 4th and King.

My argument is that Caltrain mainly connects the two most largest and richest cities in the SF Bay Area, which are both population and job centers.

It would be like calling the Google private shuttles a model for public buses to follow.

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