Caltrain is planning to eliminate 8-ride tickets and raise fares on paper tickets. The 8-ride tickets, which is available on Clipper cards only, offer a 15% discount off the regular one way fares. Besides eliminating the 8-ride tickets, Caltrain also plans to increase fares on one way and day pass paper tickets by 25 cents and 50 cents per zone respectively. However the one way fares for riders using Clipper Cards would stay the same.

If this proposal takes effect, regular riders using Clipper and 8-ride tickets would have to pay a higher fare for each ride, but not as much as those who buy paper tickets. On the other hand, riders currently buying paper tickets could avoid the fare increase by paying with a Clipper card.

Is this proposal fair to those who use 8-ride tickets? Caltrain will be accepting public comments at four public meetings throughout the three counties later this month and at the JPB meeting in February.

JPB meeting

Thursday, Feb. 2, 2012 at 10 a.m.
1250 San Carlos Ave., San Carlos

Public meetings

Caltrain will hold four public meetings to present the proposal and receive comments. The meetings will take place in:

Gilroy – Jan. 24 at 6 p.m.
Gilroy Senior Center, 7371 Hanna St.

San Francisco – Jan. 24 at 6 p.m.
San Francisco Tennis Club, 645 Fifth St.

Mountain View – Jan. 25 at 6 p.m.
City Council Chambers, 500 Castro St.

San Carlos – Jan. 25 at 6 p.m.
Caltrain Administrative Office, 1250 San Carlos Ave.

Caltrain also accepts written comments by email: changes@caltrain.com

In response to complaints from bicycle riders regarding the inconsistent bike capacity on Caltrain, the agency recently completed a project to retrofit additional rail cars to provide two bike cars on every train. All Bombardier trainsets (low floor with two doors per side) now offer 48 bike slots and all Gallery trainsets have 80 bike slots.

At a special Caltrain Citizens Advisory Committee held earlier tonight, Caltrain staff released a revised schedule (see here) for implementation in July. The revised weekday schedule cuts 10 trains off the current schedules and preserves off peak and Gilroy service, however the popular Baby Bullet service would be eliminated and replaced by slower limited stop trains.

Despite the effort to identify short term funds to cover the initial budget shortfall of $30 million, fares need to be raised and service needs to be reduced to balance the budget. The revised service would cut $5.5 million in operating costs by reducing the number of trainsets (and associated crews) on weekdays and weekends.

Weekday changes

On weekdays, Caltrain proposes to eliminate one train per hour during the peak hours. Currently Caltrain runs 5 trains per peak hour, with 2 of them being the Baby Bullet trains. Under the revised schedule, Baby Bullet trains would be eliminated and all peak hour trains would run on a limited stop schedule.

While some of the well used stations would have the same number of trains stopping there, travel time would increase up to 12 minutes from the shortest travel time currently available. With the elimination of the local-express trains, local trips on Caltrain would be made more difficult (a service more relied by the transit dependent riders).

Even though California Avenue and Sunnyvale stations would see increased reverse commute service during peak hours, it would come at the expense of reducing service at stations like South San Francisco and San Antonio, which would have no peak hour reverse commute service (southbound AM, northbound PM). San Bruno and 22nd Street stations would also lose all peak hour regular commute service as well. Bayshore, Hayward Park, and Capitol stations would lose all weekday service.

Weekend changes

To reduce costs on weekend service, Caltrain proposes to cut all weekend service to 11 stations (22nd, Bayshore, South SF, Broadway, Hayward Park, Belmont, San Carlos, Atherton, California Avenue, San Antonio, and Lawrence). The travel time from San Francisco to San Jose would be reduced from 1 hour and 36 minutes to 1 hour and 11 minutes. The reduction of travel time would allow Caltrain to reduce the number of crews needed on weekends. Special service to the Giants games is also preserved under the revised schedule.

Is this the best schedule Caltrain can produce?

Caltrain staff presented the new schedule at a special CAC meeting with the expectation that JPB will consider the proposal at its meeting on Thursday. This proposal, however lacks input from the community, especially with a service change of this magnitude (with changes in peak hour service pattern and station closures).

Caltrain estimates the revised schedule would result in a loss of $2 million in fare revenue (which is to be made up by raising fares on remaining riders) and a net cost savings of $3.3 million. There are questions as to whether cutting service this much is necessary. Is it possible to preserve weekday peak service as it is and accept the weekend service reductions? Can we accept increase in fares and parking fees and try to identify additional funding to avoid any service reductions? Caltrain has not provided details on the emergency financial package made with MTC (which is still being work on) and the community has little knowledge of what is changes are possible and impossible.

While Caltrain staff claims that the service plan needs to be approved soon so that the agency and its contract operator (Amtrak) can prepare for the service changes, the community is also very clear that it wants to be involved in the planning process and wants the service plan with the least impact. Caltrain should at least provide another opportunity for community input and possibly another revision to address the community concerns.

The effort to save Caltrain continues

Due to our grassroots efforts, we are able to prevent a much deeper cut which included the elimination of all weekend and off peak service. However, Caltrain is still in a difficult financial shape and this revised schedule is still a large step backwards. Also, within the next few years, the revised proposed schedule of 76 trains would not be financially feasible without dedicated funding.

Cutting service is no way to run a transit business, especially for a service that has improved efficiency by increasing the frequency and speed of service. We as Caltrain riders need to work together with other stakeholders to establish a dedicated funding source for Caltrain so we can preserve, restore, and enhance rail service on the Peninsula.

Despite fare increases and weekday service reductions, Caltrain has announced that it will begin running Baby Bullet trains on weekends on a pilot basis for three months. Weekend express service has been sought after by many train riders and Caltrain is looking for ways to generate more revenue similar to the success of the weekday Baby Bullet trains introduced several years ago.

As Caltrain supporters, we applaud Caltrain for listening to riders and introducing the weekend express service. As successful as current weekend local service is, we believe that weekend express service will make the trains even more competitive with automobiles, especially among those who don’t ride the trains during weekday commute hours.

Weekend Baby Bullet schedule

Hopefully the guide below will enhance your transit experience and make the weekend service more useful.

The first ever World Series victory parade for the San Francisco Giants drew so much transit ridership that overwhelmed both Caltrain and BART systems. While the trains were crowded, all systems were able to take Giants fans to and from the parade safely.

BART announced that ridership on Wednesday surpassed half a million at 522,200, the highest ever for the system. Typically on the normal day BART carries nearly 350,000 riders. Last year, when the Bay Bridge had to shutdown due to emergency repair, the highest ridership recorded was 442,100.

For Caltrain, the parade drew an additional 25,000 to 30,000 riders. Normally Caltrain carries about 40,000 riders on weekdays. Because of the ridership surge, there was a long line of people trying to buy tickets in the morning at San Jose station that extended all the way to Santa Clara Street. To alleviate the crowd, Caltrain conductors told riders to just board the trains and stop checking tickets in the morning. Amtrak, which is the contract operator of Caltrain, pulled out all the resources available to provide extra service both in the morning and afternoon. For the southbound service in the afternoon, Caltrain basically suspended the regular service and run only local trains from the city as they get full.

In Millbrae, because BART was overwhelmed with riders waiting in line to buy tickets to go to Civic Center, Caltrain conductors advised Caltrain riders not to transfer to BART in Millbrae. Some BART riders reported that it took them an hour just to buy tickets.

Although Caltrain provided a lot of “free” service in the morning, the ticket machines on the system collected $210,000 in revenue on that day, 3 times more than on a typical first Wednesday of the month.

The World Series parade was essentially a stress test for the rail systems in the region. Despite some degree of prior planning for this event, the level of ridership was way beyond expectation. While Caltrain was able to react quickly and operate safely with the current infrastructure, it is also clear that significant improvements, including electrification, are needed to accommodate future ridership growth.