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Caltrain shows why every region should be moving toward regional rail
61–70 of 74 posts
Re: Caltrain shows why every region should be moving toward regional rail
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can tell you the light rail in Austin is a complete failure. There was some ridership before the pandemic, but after a few years, the numbers are dismal. They've covered the windows with ads, so you can't even tell how empty they are inside. Meanwhile, they crisscross the city, constantly blocking streets with rail guards just to shuffle a handful of people north and south.
The Austin train you are talking about is heavy rail. Not to be confused with Austin light rail which is Coming Soon (TM). It's still more reliable than the busses. I think it's pretty fun.
I'm not sure how you'd measure the effectiveness of light rail/trams vs buses - a hybrid of average journey duration, number of passengers, and I suppose some ROI type metric?
Either way personally priority bus lanes feel significantly more flexible and cheaper to implement than LR/trams...but that's just a personal opinion.
Re: Caltrain shows why every region should be moving toward regional rail
#63It's interesting that their schedule increase seems to demonstrate that (at least below a certain cap), increasing frequency directly increases ridership.
Re: Caltrain shows why every region should be moving toward regional rail
#64The 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…
There are significant difference between driving a car on the 101 and taking Caltrain. Given the option of a) being stuck driving in traffic for an hour long commute and b) reading on a train for an hour, I'll always take the reading.
Re: Caltrain shows why every region should be moving toward regional rail
#65Caltrain 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…
You should check Austin TX where they tried to do the same thing, but only built one rail.... So yea you have to wait like over an hour just for arrival if the train is at the other end. For what should be a 15 min ride because literally only one train can go back and forth. The train drivers sometime stop the train to get food at in-n-out burger too, seriously. Its one of the dumbest things I've ever seen, a testame…
Remember that Texas cities are having to actively fight with their own state and national level representatives, not to mention economic interests. It's not a "bureaucratic inefficiency" as much as it is active sabotage. That cities in Texas manage to get any public transit built is a miracle.
Re: Caltrain shows why every region should be moving toward regional rail
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 plon…
I've wondered about running BART from Fremont to East Palo Alto and Redwood City via Dumbarton. Not sure what the ridership would be though. I looked at the Dumbarton bridge traffic and it's the least of the three bridges and pales in comparison to the bay bridge.
Still if you built that the gap between Millbrae and Redwood city is 12 miles.
Re: Caltrain shows why every region should be moving toward regional rail
#67Caltrain 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 the ABAG had power, I would have them replace Caltrain with BaRT to make a it a loop around the SF/SP Bay Area and tear out CalTrain. Caltrain remains because the tracks are used by UP --if it were not UP's right-of-way, BaRT could have that corridor. BaRT could still work if they did cut-and-cover to build a parallel line under the Camino Real. Granted that'd be a lot of money today --they should have bought in b…
Having BART more frequent running with more stops running next to Caltrain faster with less stops would be interesting.
Re: Caltrain shows why every region should be moving toward regional rail
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
Also WFH is still around. Sure RTO is being forced but it's not universal. Lots of orgs are still hybrid.
Yeah; my bay area job is basically remote (in all but name), but I keep hearing "everyone" had to RTO.
Re: Caltrain shows why every region should be moving toward regional rail
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
You should check Austin TX where they tried to do the same thing, but only built one rail.... So yea you have to wait like over an hour just for arrival if the train is at the other end. For what should be a 15 min ride because literally only one train can go back and forth. The train drivers sometime stop the train to get food at in-n-out burger too, seriously. Its one of the dumbest things I've ever seen, a testame…
That's a bit of an exaggeration. A quick look at the schedule shows they do have multiple trains running in each direction during peak hours: https://www.capmetro.org/plan/schedmap?route=550 But much of the length is, in fact, single-track, making scheduling hard and meaning if a train is late or breaks down it disrupts the whole system. And it's honestly pretty silly to see a train with the form factor of light rail…
What I wrote is accurate. You are referring to a line that goes out of the city to elgin, a tiny town, that is the only part with two tracks. The part that serves the Austin area has only one line and is as I described. Hey what do I know I just lived next to it for 4 years, and drove to work even though I could walk to the train because of how terrible it is and would add 1-2hrs to my commmute.
Re: Caltrain shows why every region should be moving toward regional rail
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
> light rail in Austin is a complete failure Light rail is stupid. It’s a bus that can’t change lanes. A train that gets stuck in traffic. And, as you said, they visibly disrupt drivers which generates class animosity.
I think you’re thinking of streetcars—trains that share right of way with cars. Light rail often has its own right-of-way with priority over cars. (That’s what the crossing guards are for.)
> Light rail often has its own right-of-way with priority over cars
It’s still at grade. Priority is meaningless if there is a car in the way when the guards come down. And those guards, in interrupting traffic, are annoying to drivers. (I’d also point out that the line between trams, street cars and light rail is ambiguous. It’s an American term describing principally European infrastructure.)