To ease traffic pressures on the north/south highways and arterials in SM and SF counties, it is essential to extend Caltrain to the new Transbay Transit Center with fast pedestrian connections to Market Street and the BART and Muni Metro subways. The governnment of San Francisco is being a little slow to recognizei this need.

Electronic station signs directing passengers to the appropriate platform, as well as electronic signs at the entrance to each train car, listing train number, destination, and departure time are absolutely necessary. The only way to identify a train now is to trot up to the leading car or engine and peer up at the numbers on the rear-view mirror. Or pester a conductor. Way, way, antiquated.

Oh dear, where do I start?

Low hanging fruit (doesn’t require electrification):
– How about clipper add value machines at every station? The transition to clipper happened nearly 2 years ago, and I still can’t buy passes at stations. Ridiculous.
– More frequent service to stations near population centers (e.g. San Antonio, Sunnyvale).
– More frequent service during mid-day, weekends, evenings.
– Later service.
– Reform the fare system – zones were fine for paper tickets, but let’s move on now that we have clipper. Also, eliminate 8-rides and replace with a deeper clipper cash discount.
– Coordinate with other public transit services to have reasonable transfers. Transfers to/from VTA light rail can take nearly 30 minutes in the evening (as bad as possible given light rail’s headways).

All of this could, technically, be accomplished today, and would turn Caltrain from a half-decent commuter train into a mass transit service which is useful for the population as a whole.

More ambitious:
– Level boarding.
– More frequent service through the entire day.
– Quieter trains, less horn sounding through residential neighborhoods (grade separation?)
– Amenities. Toilets that work and aren’t awful. Train cars that ride smoothly.

That’s off the top of my head.

Wi fi on the train

Grade crossings are critical. Find a way to get for CalTrain improvements all the funding BART receives for the area of San Mateo County where BART doesn’t run. The improvements could be grade separations and service to south SM co.

Caltrain is great; it is clean and its stations are located within walking distance of nearly every town along its route, however, it needs to have dedicated funding as the JPB can’t plan for the future when funding is always a problem.

Looking to the future, a blended high speed rail/Caltrain system will offer more bullet trains/high speed trains to SF throughout the day rather than only during peak commute times. This will be an advantage for those who also travel during off peak times.

In the meantime, an additional northbound baby bullet train is needed from SJ to SF weekday mornings around 9 or 10AM for appointments during the middle of the day. After the last morning northbound baby bullet train, Caltrain ceases to compete with the automobile; the local trains take 81 or 91 minutes to reach SF, the terminal is at Fourth and Townsend, & it is necessary to take a taxi or MUNI to reach your final destination. In other words, if you can’t take a baby bullet train from SJ to SF, it’s best to allow 2 hours to get to a SF destination. But there is no reason to use Caltrain after the morning commute; it is easier, more convenient, and takes less time to drive to San Francisco during off peak hours.

Caltrain needs to compete with the automobile throughout the day.

I’d go for regular service with increased number of trains at peak hours. Most important is good track that allows the trains to go fast. This means:
1. Passing places so trains can pass each other more frequently
2. Removal of level crossings – either put the road below or over the railway
3. Track that can take a 125 mph train
4. Friendly stations – this means a cafe on the station, people selling food
5. Food on the train – could make more money if you sold coffee on the train
6. More ads on the train – like the London Underground – every square inch of space on the train ceilings, station pillars, etc should have ads – back of seats too.
7. Fund by:
a) Bonds
b) Private investment in train real estate – get people to lease cafes on stations and build other food outlets
c) Higher fares and parking fees
d) More billboards on side of track – think you are Google – every rail asset is probably a space for an ad
e) First class car on the train with better seats, food service, news on screens
f) Bike storage, repair and rental facilities at stations – rent to a bike store chain – better bike cars on trains
g) Showers at stations – for both homeless and people commuting who want to get to work clean – again sell or rent the space to a company that specializes in spas or swimming pools
h) Restrooms at stations – pay for them – keep them clean with a bathroom cleaner regularly at the station

Until the train is significantly faster than the car there will be low ridership – when the train gets faster than a car

Unfortunately, I won’t be attending. Are there alternative venues to catch the presentation?

I often tell people I have a love-hate relationship with Caltrain. I love the Caltrain because for certain uses, it is wonderful. I have a nice, relaxing ride where I can read or do something else instead of stressing and wasting time in traffic. I hate Caltrain because those “certain uses” basically only amount to regular commuting during peak hours.

1. More frequent service. I would love to take Caltrain on the weekends to run errands up and down the peninsula, for example, but the possibility of finishing my errands and then having to wait 45 minutes for the next train makes me inclined to take the car instead. Same if I’m commuting up to SF for a mid-day meeting: odds are the meeting doesn’t coordinate with the schedule and then I have to wait forever for the next train.

2. Level boarding with wide doors. If that’s not possible, would it be possible to install a little ramp on each side of the door to make it possible to wheel a bike up the stairs?

3. There is no reason for Clipper users to pay a zone-based fare. Not only should Clipper enable a distance-based fare to be calculated automatically, all passes should simply be eliminated for Clipper users and instead the system should be programmed to automatically apply steeper discounts once you hit pre-defined usage thresholds.

4. Schedule coordination, both with other transit agencies and with the various shuttle services up and down the peninsula. It does no good for Caltrain to offer more frequent service if people still have to wait a half hour for the Commute.org shuttle on the other end. It may also help to advocate for bicycle infrastructure so that people might feel safer biking the last few miles (and therefore there will be less need for shuttles).

5. Wifi.

Aside from the obvious reducing time between trains, how about putting GPS tracking on every train so I can tell exactly where my train is, what its status is, and potentially when it will arrive. The current arrive times flashed on station screens is better than nothing, but not particularly useful if the train is stopped – seeing the train late xx minutes increment up one minute every minute is madenning, and the sign does me no good if I am nearby but not at the station. This should be trivial, cheap and quick to do with modern smart-phones and tracking apps. You could also use the phone as an emergency back-up comms system.

These links are exactly what I mean. If the train is on time or a few minutes late, fine. But if it is stopped, the time just increments up one minute at a time. Is the train late leaving a station because they are slow loading? Is it because they just hit a vehicle or a person? a breakdown? There is no indication of what really is going on unless someone on that train tweets – which may be ten or twenty minutes later – if anyone on the train has a clue. If the train is stopped just beyond an intersection, at least I could surmise that it hit something or broke down, and I need to use alternate transportation ASAP.