The Green Caltrain blog is sponsored by BayRail Alliance, an all-volunteer non-profit organization supporting green rail transit in the Bay Area. This blog and BayRail have no affiliation with Caltrain.Your feedback needed on Caltrain modernization
As of last Friday, Caltrain modernization is funded as part of the state legislature’s passage of high speed rail appropriations. This means that those of us on the Caltrain corridor will most likely see a better train schedule in the foreseeable future. Caltrain will be able to serve more stations with the same or better trip times, at lower cost, not to mention less pollution.
There will be a lot to do to make sure the plans for Caltrain modernization meet the needs of riders and local areas. Your feedback will be needed as Caltrain does the planning over the next year with community input.
There are two meetings tomorrow where you can learn about the latest in the Caltrain modernization project from Marian Lee, the director of the program.
San Mateo County Rail Corridor Partnership
July 18, 3pm
San Mateo Library, 55 W. 3rd Avenue, San Mateo, Oak Room.
Caltrain Citizens Advisory Committee – see agenda
July 18, 5:40 pm
1250 San Carlos Ave, San Carlos (near the Caltrain station)
Here are some of the areas where our feedback will be needed:
1) What is the best schedule? Do we want more frequent service, more express service, a mix of both?
2) How will more train service affect traffic? What areas will benefit the most from grade separations?
3) How to pay for Caltrain’s operating funding, before and after electrification? What can be done beforehand, when Caltrain is still running the more expensive diesel system? What is the right funding solution after electrification, when Caltrain will have higher revenue and lower costs?
4) How to fund grade separations and the Downtown Extension to Transbay? How will our region get funding for these important investments?
5) How will Caltrain and HSR work together? It will be important will to pay attention to Caltrain’s plans so that Caltrain and HSR work together when (or if) HSR gets here in the longer term.
6) How will Caltrain work with local communities to coordinate development accessible to transit, and with businesses to promote transit and relieve parking
Among friends of Caltrain, there have been differing opinions about High Speed Rail – in favor, skeptical, and opposed. Wherever you have been in this debate, the opportunity before us now is to be involved in Caltrain’s modernization plan to make sure that it meets our needs, and to make sure that Caltrain operations are funded so we have continued service without cuts.
Stay tuned for more opportunities to be involved in the important decisions that will shape Caltrain service and our area.
From Jesse Ruderman:
I want clarity (signs indicating what kind of train is arriving) and later service (don’t stop at midnight).
Caltrain is currently testing realtime data – the system is expected to go live by the end of the year.
Re: later service – I would love to see service run later, especially on weekends. The midnight train from SF is too early, and the 10:30 from SJ is painful.
From Daniel Connelly:
Adina:
From what I can tell in that referenced schedule study the principal point of weakness is it assumed station preferences are inflexible. If passengers board at a station, they will wait for the next available train at that station. However, that is rarely the case.
I strongly favor a continued emphasis on speed: time down the peninsula. If electrics are faster, don’t trade off that speed with more stops per train, instead keep the same baby bullet philosophy and cut more time from the commute.
For example, as a cyclist I can choose 4th or 22 at the north side, San Antonio, MtView, or Sunnyvale at the south side. I would gladly deviate from my preferred choice if it cuts 5 or more minutes from the trip.
Dan
to Daniel
That is a good point – people have some flexibility to go to the next
station.
As a cyclist, I can take the bullet from Palo Alto instead of Menlo
Park. I think as cyclists, though, we have a skewed perspective. San
Antonio and Sunnyvale look a lot closer to downtown Mountain View for
you and me than for the 88% of Caltrain users who don’t bring a bike.
In that case people drive to the full parking lots in PA and Mountain
View, or they just drive all the way.
There is land use to consider. There is a lot of development going in
at San Antonio – and that station has a terrible schedule. I suspect
we would be better off if some of the station areas that *want* more
mixed use development should get better schedules. And cities can
use more of their downtown space for houses, offices and retail rather
than parking lots.
This is a great discussion to be having as Caltrain is making these decisions.
from Daniel Connelly
I don’t think cyclists are so skewed.
There’s always the local transportation option at the end of the trip. MtView is obviously special because of the not-easily-moved light rail station, and 4th/King because of the MUNI rail. But many passengers either leave a car at the destination, leave a bike in a locker, or use a company shuttle. None of these customers are locked into a particular station, not considering the limits in parking or space for company shuttles at a given station.
Customers who can easily walk to/from a given station at both ends of their trip are always a small minority of the total potential market, so if the train is going to increase market share, the focus cannot be on them. Doing so further alienates the vast majority of commuters. The focus instead needs to be on improving accessibility to key stations.
From Martin Sommer:
My current input is the accelerate the schedule. I do not understand why this is an eight year project … I think it could be done in three.
Could you please pass on this input?
Thanks,
Martin
From Irvin Dawid:
Though I am a huge advocate of electrification, your question about the ‘schedule’ is critical. I believe Caltrain is planning for “more stops” for all trains – even renewing service to closed weekday station.
This just doesn’t make sense.
Bullet trains were great because of the fewer stops.
Without platform-level boarding, each stop takes too long….add wheelchairs and bike and forgettabout the advantage of the faster trains enabled by electricity.
Bullet trains are key to Caltrains future, regardless of how the trains are powered.
All local service trains will see the most advantage of electrification.
But changing bullet trains to having them serve more stations defeats the advantages of electrification.
Irvin,
Caltrain has not decided on a schedule. The published sample was just a sample, not a decision. They will be looking for community feedback, such as your recommendations for bullet trains.
There are definitely tradeoff decisions to make. There are stations such as San Antonio which have a lot of development near Caltrain, but have truly terrible schedules.
Personally, I would like to see Caltrain keep the bullets, but also improve service at stations like San Antonio and Cal Ave that would benefit from more frequent trains.
A 2.30am train leaving from SF on Friday and Saturday night would be great. I think it would really cut down on drunk driving.
How to address the ridership increase before the electrification? With recent 2 years ridership increase, many of express train becomes standing room only from San Francisco. Gallery car is not designed for standing room only train. Depending on schedule of electrification, Caltrain will need more 2-door(Bombardia) car and forced to retire (or sell) some garelly cars. There are several transit orineted development are on going, Caltrain ridership will not decrease.
I would like to see simplyfied same stop pattern of express train more frequest as every 15 min (during peak period). At the same time, local train can operate every 30 minutes.
Milbrae can be transfer station between local and express with minimum expense of construction. We don’t need 4 track system.
Northbound platform of Sunnyvale station can be 2 track and enables local-express transfer.
Midday and Weekend also need 30 min frequency of local train and minimum of hourly express train.
30 min frequency of local train 7 days a week does not need current long 5 car trainset. 2~3 car of Bombardia car with “ONE conductor” is already enough.
Caltrain has 118 passenger car (93 Gallery + 25 Bombardia). Better utilize those resource and get maximum revenue!
At this moment, thier farebox recovery is 55~60%. Increase train frequency but maintain minimum cost increase, its recovery ration can be improved to ~70%. (Before electrification)
I hope Caltrain can archive break even after electrification.
Adina: First, congratulations on your selection as a CAC member. I hope you get an opportunity to ask great questions on our behalf AND get answers. Second, what happened to the process of comment on the proposed new timetable? I’ve seen nothing in print. As a peak time commuter (SJ-SF) I’m naturally concerned about end-to-end journey time and the serious overcrowding on Baby-Bullets at those times. Concerned, that is, because 4 of the 6 additional trains do nothing to address the clear demand. Has a cost benefit analysis been conducted before the 4 midday trains were added, or was that the easy option compared to a complete makeover of the schedule? To reinforce the point made elsewhere: “modernization” starts with an efficient schedule NOW, not waiting until electrification. You must have seen all the posts about scheduling on Mr. Tillier’s blog. Why hasn’t any of that kind of thinking shown up in San Carlos?
Heh. One of the questions I didn’t get to at the last meeting was whether any changes had been made to the proposed schedule. I’m looking at the timetable handed out at the meeting. it includes new northbound trains at 9:40 and 4:30 out of Diridon and 9:37 and 6:20 out of SF. It seems to me that all for of these would help ease the burden of rush hour crowding by providing alternatives for riders who have the flexibility to travel earlier or later.
The other 2 new trains are mid-day, 2:40 out of Diridon and 2:37 out of SF. Personally I am quite thankful for these 2 trains – I often have mid-day meetings somewhere along the route and incremental move toward saner headway replace car trips.
@Adina. I grant you that, in general, more trains look to be an improvement. But if we are presuming to do that cost effectively in the light of the current “sky is falling” mantra from Caltrain, there’s a contradiction here surely? As a traditional peak end-to-end passenger I get to observe a lot of the boarding habits, particularly on B.Bullets. Most people are travelling then because they have to, to keep their job. Unfortunately the elightenment of everyone’s employers to allow flexible working appears not to exist in any meaningful way. That calls into question the cost effectiveness of at least two of the six new trains (and I think I’m being charitable there). What we need is more USEFUL trains, not just more trains. We’ll only get that with a major overhaul of the schedules whereupon we will be “shocked” to discover that we don’t need to expend on six extra trains this way. Clock face schedules, leasing of shorter/cheaper trains for the next ten years, more service to major employment locations. Where shall we start?
@Michael: Caltrain’s 5 Different stop pattern should be simplified. Only limited pair of station have emjoyed 2 train / h frequency but rest of them have only one useful train per hours.
Can it be very simple just express and local? Express operate every (4tph)15 min and local operate every (2tph) 30 min frequency. Local train can be bypassed by express at Laerence, REDWOOD CITY JUNCTION, Milbrae platform 4S (NB only) and Bayshore.
Don’t forget Local train should be 2 or 3 car and one conductor only.
Re: shorter trains – Caltrain’s explanation is that with the current technology they can’t easily operate shorter trainsets because they can’t reshuffle the sets with a locomotive. But with electrification, they will be able to easily trains run trains of varying lengths because the cars are self-powered.
Also, they expect to phase in the electric trains incrementally for local trains first (because the extra acceleration helps most with multiple stops). So perhaps those trains could be shorter.
Regarding the value of the shorter trains in spreading out the peak, I guess we’ll see how that works. It would be interesting to see BART data for the shape of the rush hour curve, since they have a much better schedule outside of high rush hour.
@Adina: re:shorter trains: we’ve all heard Caltrain’s explanation before. That presupposes that shortening EXISTING trainsets is the only way to go. Surely they should be thinking about how to provide service for the next 8-10 years BEFORE electrification and while the Gallery sets are becoming more of a maintenance liability? They haven’t even explored leasing some DMU’s for low volume off-peak use, have they? Or would that require another FRA waiver application? And BART as a comparison? Hmm. That’s a fully grade separated mass-transit system not a commuter railroad.
Doing nothing for 8-10 years is not REALLY an option, now is it?
@YT Kim – Love the frequency suggested, but one needs to take into account the extra rolling stock (if not staff) required.
I think it’s less than 8-10 years. The latest rough schedule quoted by Marian Lee was 2013 for environmental clearance, 2014 for design, and 3 years for construction, and then testing. They don’t have more detail than that, and are going to be looking for opportunities to accelerate. I can’t remember which of those things Marian Lee said at the CAC meeting vs the earlier SMC Rail Corridor Partnership meeting on the same day. Good question, though, what to do in the interim.
Even without a lot more grade separations Caltrain can do better than 60 minute headways, and the land use in this area is better for a more transit-like schedule than lots of BART territory.
@Michael. If Caltrain keep current operating practice, they need more rolling stock. If they improve train ulitlization efficiency (including turn-around time), such schedule can archive less rolling stock.
* Currently Caltrain has 93 Gallary and 25 Bombardia. (Total 118)
5 car consist x 23 set = 115.
2 trainsets reserve for maintenance. Another 2 trainsets stay at SF/SJ terminal in case there is mechanical problem.
Train utilization = 86/(23-4)=4.5. In average, one train set runs only 2.25 times of round trip a day.
If 2.25 round trip is made by loca train, average revenue hour of trainset is only 7.2hr a day. (4.5 one way trip SF-SJ * 96 min = 432 min = 7.2hr)
Caltrian today posted recent ridership record in their board meeting agenda.
May-2012; 49,017 (+15.3%) Average weekday, 1,333,901 (+16.7%) Monthly total
June-2012; 50,390 (+13.4%) Average weekday, 1,319,404 (+11.0%) Monthly total
Congraturation for 50,000 weekday ridership.