* Mountain View has ambitious plans to reduce driving to North Bayshore from 62% to 45%. Â Will Caltrain electrification help achieve this goal, and how?
* Service to San Antonio was cut when the Baby Bullet was introduced. Will we see more service in San Antonio? Or less service?
* The San Antonio area is seeing an influx of major new developments. Will people who live and work in the area use Caltrain? How can we keep growth from causing traffic gridlock?
* The intersection of Castro, Moffett and Central, where Caltrain, crosses at grade, has safety and traffic problems. Â Â How will electrification affect these problems? Â How soon will Mountain View need to grade-separate, and how can that be paid for?
* The Caltrain parking lots downtown fill up. Â How will increase service affect demand for parking? What can the city and Caltrain do to help people get to the train without driving?
Click here to RSVP
How about extending light rail down Moffett to North Bayshore area? There are already plans to create a bicycle boulevard to North Bayshore, so this would complement the service for people who don’t/can’t bike. Although, unrelated to electrification really.
It’s silly to claim to San Antonio could have less than hourly service.
Castro intersection is mess. Maybe it should just be closed and the block of Castro between Evelyn and Villa made pedestrian only. Alternatively, keep Evelyn and make an road underpass that feeds feeds Evelyn only. This eliminates the need for ugly road transition to happen in the middle of Castro.
[…] From Green Caltrain: […]
I’m betting that one contributing factor to the parking problem at Mountain View is the lack of decent service at San Antonio and Cal Ave. Should it really take waiting until electrification to fix that? A radical makeover of the schedule is required NOW!
I quit using Mountain View Caltrain Station when I realized that I was starting my commute earlier and earlier JUST to be certain of getting a parking space there! For all the good things that came from having a Baby Bullet service, getting poorer service at San Antonio and Cal Ave was not one of them. Redesign the schedule now, Caltrain, and don’t wait for electrification.
Well, when Caltrain “reinvented” itself, ridership jumped significantly. Service is more efficient if people go to a single stop, and there was greater good in that schedule change. There’s parking near Evelyn light rail station that could work.
I suspect that once Caltrain is electrified, San Antonio could get 2 trains per hour, but there’s really nothing within 5 minute walking distance around there. You can’t do much with the schedule. If you add more stops (say San Antonio), then trains will run slower and we’ll have less capacity. 4tph vs 5tph currently. If you want to add San Antonio, which station do you propose should lose service to keep trains on schedule?
@Martin…… maybe I’m an optimist, then. But what we might observe is that incremental changes to an already crazy schedule don’t improve to odds of TOD working. The very idea that for San Antonio to “win” , somewhere else must “lose” is what traps Caltrain today. .Check out some of the creative thinking on Clem Tillier’s blog posts about timetables to see what’s possible. Then encourage the folks at Caltrain to take it to heart as well.
“but there’s really nothing within 5 minute walking distance around there” – this is changing soon. There are new developments going in, and Mountain View is working on a Precise Plan for the area, with goals to make it a lot more walkable and bikeable with better access to the station.
Caltrain should have service roadmap regarding train frequency (both local and express) . Train frequency at each station should be differenciate based on ridership, demand and potential growth.
Calfornia Avenue has clearly poor service compared with San Carlos, which have same level of ridership (~1200 daily).
Current 1tph (both San Antonio and Cal Ave) is not acceptable. Local train frequency should be at lease every 30 min 7 days a week, except late evening~early morning.