The passage of California Proposition 1A (2008) set in motion a complete reconstruction of the railroad between San Jose and San Francisco. This blog exists to discuss compatibility between HSR and Caltrain, integration issues, and the impact on adjoining communities.
19 September 2024
September 2024 Open Thread
Electric service starts this weekend. The blog comment system stopped working on the August open thread, so let's try this instead?
Please continue comments in this thread. The August open thread seems permanently bugged, with newer comments not appearing. The tech support here is worth every penny I pay for it, which is zero :)
Reality Check commented on the old thread, and pointed out that if clicking "load more" the invisible comments gets loaded. Thanks!
Unfortunately the # thingie to go to the right comment when following either the links in the upper right hand side or RSS feed don't work directly. At least in Firefox just activating the URL field and pressing enter will take you to the correct comment.
Seems like the "load more" thingie should really also follow the # thingie, but don't.
Btw, also seems like we are writing too many comments :) The limit for the "load more" to show up seems to be 200 comments :D
Also, maybe edit this blog post to include Reality Checks two comments on the previous post,
"Caltrain will present its draft 10-year Capital Improvement Plan, which includes level boarding, at tonight’s September CAC meeting." https://www.caltrain.com/media/34083/download
According to the draft 10-year capital plan, Caltrain plans an entirely new signal and control system, new CCTV, intrusion detection, fencing, fiber optics, communications, etc.? Is there a real need for this or have the consultants said "there are risks" and "systems are aging?" Unfortunately, it seems 80% of the plan will be invisible to customers (besides some mini-high platforms and new Redwood City station).
A 10 year plan not including level boarding all the way along the line? Weird.
The other parts seems reasonable. Btw re fiber optics, I think an important thing for both Caltrain and Cali HSR would be to run extra fiber lines and rent out them to anyone who wants to use them, highest bidder. Sure, you can run fiber optics along power lines, and you can use radio links for communications, but offering an additional "route" for telecom could bring in some extra profit.
Caltrain staff says they have suffered numerous accidental fiber damaging incidents at the hands of various construction crews in recent years. In many or most cases, repairs were “temporary.” So the CIP fiber stuff involves more proper / permanent repairs in addition to something about getting set to rent out or lease excess (currently “dark”) fiber capacity.
Oh sweet summer child... let's not whitewash this one. The reason the fiber optic cables are so severely patched up is that the CBOSS subcontractor tasked with installing them was specifically directed not to bury them where it was easiest to dig, because the pole foundations would soon go there. The subcontractor not only disregarded this direction and quickly buried the fiber optic cables right where the foundations would go, but fraudulently falsified as-built drawings to show the cables were installed as directed. Fast forward to pole foundation installation, and the "potholing" process (exploratory digging) kept turning up the stupid cables. This caused huge delays and costs as pole foundations had to be redesigned and/or the cables spliced and moved out of the way. You may remember the acronym for this was "DSC" or "Discrepant Site Conditions" and the electrification contractor made some serious bank on DSC change orders. This info turned up in the CBOSS lawsuit, if anybody wants to go digging for the lurid details. In short, it is a giant steaming heap of incompetence and outright fraud that got us to the point where the cables need replacing from "accidental" damage.
So, what has CBOSS (which never delivered *anything*) cost the public at this point? Most assuredly over $300 million. Over $500 million yet? Quite possibly! Who can say? Who could even venture to guess? Numbers are social constructs, the past is no guide to the future, and FISCAL CLIFF SEND MORE MONEY.
Also, where was today's Caltrain CEO and where was Caltrain's former CEO when CBOSS was conceived ... approved ... funded ... contracted .. funded some more ... funded MORE AND MORE AND MORE ... and – as 100% accurately predicted, right here on caltrain-hsr.blogspot.com –, abjectly failed? I mean, you can't just *disappear* a half billion dollars of the public's cash with *zero* consequences, can you? *Can you????*
Is (attempted) cable theft a problem when it comes to fiber optics? (i.E. thieves not knowing what they are doing trying to steal fiber optics, or fiber optics being damaged when actual cable theft happens).
Comparison/whatnot: In Sweden the common practice is to put concrete trays/troughs, with concrete lids on top, along rail lines, for various cables. Not sure if those are used for fiber optics too, or only electrical cables. This makes it blatantly obvious where the wires are, and as a bonus they form a decent walkway for workers so they don't have to walk on gravel. The problems with cable theft seems to mostly affect thicker metal cables though, in particular grounding wires (which in absolute worst case can result in signalling equipment being destroyed due to the overhead electrification current going through the signalling cables rather than the correct ground path. This problem would likely apply no matter how you do electrification though; hard to bury the connections to the actual rails).
City Beautiful on YouTube did a video about Salesforce transit center. Probably mostly nothing new to most readers here, but still. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5o3YX9SS2MU
I have to admit that I didn't know that Link21 is trying to decide on either building a BART tunnel or a mainline railway tunnel. I would think that a mainline tunnel would give the most bang-for-the-bucks.
I tried searching what the time table looked like before the pandemic but couldn't find it :( Today there are four lines sharing the current tunnel and each runs every 20 minute (looking at the time table from 7AM on a Friday, assuming this is the schedule for rush hour week days). This means approximately a train every five minutes, and to me that means that the current tunnel can host at least twice as many trains.
Btw the video states that BART can't share right of way with regular trains due to gauge differences. I don't think this is true since the difference is wide enough to likely fit tracks for both gauges. It's rather a matter of mixing FRA style crash worthy heavy trains and ligher non-FRA style trains on the same line at the same time that I would think hinders sharing the track bed. Also heavy trains needs to be at bit further apart time wise so it would be hard to mix things anyways.
But most importantly I think that it's questionable to have BART be the main rapid transit options between downtown SF and the further away stations on the east side of the bay.
Link21 has been implying for some time that they are leaning toward mainline--which you're correct is the best decision, as it provides HSR benefits in addition to higher-speed/longer-distance regional rail. For decades before the pandemic, it was assumed that a second transbay tube would be for BART--which is part of why a transbay route for HSR to get to SF was not seriously considered, even by Altamont advocates. This seems to have been assumed for several reasons. One, BART ridership was on a trendline to outgrow the existing tube in the near future, which it certainly no longer is. Two, it was ingrained in government planners' minds (and the general public's, though not the sort of people who comment here) that BART means modern frequent rapid transit and mainline means 1950s 'murican commuter rail (low frequency, slow trains, shit schedules, gallery cars, etc etc), so future rapid transit needs were assumed to be only addressable through more BART, not mainline rail (wtf is an s-bahn anyway). Three, agency turf wars over heavy rail in the inner Bay Area had always gone BART's way for half a century, and "BART" was assumed to mean the current BART system, not mainline trains with the BART logo on them. Point 1 is less of an issue post-pandemic, especially with BART's Transbay Core Capacity Program, which I'll expand on below. Point 2 is slowly (slowly!) becoming less of an issue as people see a glimmer of mainline rail becoming something better with electrified Caltrain. Point 3 is also becoming less relevant as BART-the-agency has gotten into the mainline business by operating Capitol Corridor--as evidenced by the BART-run Link21 study leaning in favor of mainline rail.
Before the pandemic, BART could run max 24 trains per hour through the tube, averaging just under 9 cars per train out of a max of 10. There were four constraints: rolling stock fleet size, traction power, train control, and train storage space. Transbay Core Capacity will expand the tube's capacity to 30 10-car trains per hour by addressing all four constraints. New traction power facilities have been built in SF and are still being built in the East Bay. Extra cars for the new fleet are now being delivered in addition to the original order which replaced the old fleet. Communications-based train control is being installed, although it's taking a maddeningly long time. And an expanded storage yard will be built in Hayward, although costs seem extreme. All of this will result in nearly a 40% increase in transbay capacity--all without building a new BART tube. And with ridership still below half of pre-pandemic, BART isn't likely to need a second tube for a long time.
You are right that gauge is the least of the issues with mixing BART and mainline traffic on one track bed. On top of crash standards, BART already runs a heavily-branched system at (in the past and again someday) very high utilization, so exposing it to delayed mainline trains would cause cascading delays across the BART network.
Your final point is also correct, BART's average speeds aren't high enough (due to many urban stations) to serve distances beyond what it already does (or indeed to serve the outer limits of what it already serves).
All of this means that there's an opening now to invest in a mainline transbay tube that will meet the Bay's HSR and longer-distance regional rail needs. With BART-the-system below capacity for the next few decades and BART-the-agency figuring out that it can get in on the mainline rail game, the factors that previously all but ensured BART-the-system would take a future second tube are gone.
Apart from the inadequate collision “buff strength” of lightweight aluminum BART trains, the BART ROW loading gauge (clearances) and structure load limits preclude simply dual-gauging to allow shared-use with FRA-compliant standard passenger rail equipment.
@MiaM, now you see yet again dysfunctional Bay Area transportation planning. Obviously a new tunnel should be "mainline," or conventional heavy rail, standard gauge plus be electrified overhead. It would allow all manner rail service not only in the Bay Area but regionally, which means also serving the northern San Joaquin Valley, including the commuter shed of the Bay Area actually beyond it plus obviously the Sacramento area. It also might one day offer potential along the East Bay for inter-city, meaning long-distance, service. That might include reaching the Central Valley and continuing to Southern California like the high-speed rail project is supposed to do, or also serve the "Coast Line" to Paso Robles and San Luis Obispo and onward to L.A. or even San Diego on that route. It's slow, but would see some interest, and an East Bay as well as Peninsula service option would be welcomed.
@Bryan Anderson, conventional or "heavy" rail has never been interpreted, nor has it been intended, only to be commuter rail be it metro only or regional someday with a new Altamont Pass route, improved Capitol Corridor-Sacramento ("I-80 corridor") route, or highly-desirable, worth discussing since they're the best, but won't happen Dublin Canyon Tri-Valley plus eastern Contra Costa and Stockton or new Sacramento routes. Rail service has always been thought of as at least regional and most have wanted at least some effort at better inter-city travel. The real biggie in this state has always been connecting the Los Angeles area to the southern Central Valley (Tulare Basin south of the San Joaquin Valley proper), and were that done, there would be finally some good rail interest given that would be a faster route than the Coast Route, pretty as the latter is. I'd like the Coast Route sped up, too.
@Anonymous You and I agree of course that a mainline tube should serve all of these things, and finally Link21 is talking about them too. I am referring to past discussions of a second tube, which seem to have always assumed that it would "obviously" be BART since that was the "obvious" way to serve regional transit needs, with mainline rail long being relegated to an afterthought.
This post seems relevant to the Link21 discussion. Here is an illustration of what a single-bore tunnel might look like. I am relieved that all signs point to a standard gauge regional rail solution.
Definitely relevant, as is your earlier post "Down the Tubes with DTX" [0] and the linked Deutsche Bahn transbay through-running study [1], which show the critical importance of a mainline Link21.
DB found a capacity of 20 tph if all trains through-run (or 14 through-run and 6 turn from the west). What DB did not apparently consider is the capacity if some trains turn from the *east* and never continue down the peninsula (and avoid the poorly designed western throat), as I argue HSR should do. Maybe some off-peak HSR could run through, but nothing that strangles Caltrain at peak time. 4th and Townsend HSR is dumb, airport HSR is overrated, Redwood City or Palo Alto HSR is marginal, and there's a better way to get HSR from Altamont to San Jose.
With less than 40% of its pre-pandemic ridership, Caltrain faces a fiscal cliff when federal pandemic operating funds run out in 2026, that will force a major cut in service if not averted.
At 9:30 Monday morning, the MTC Transportation Revenue Measure Select Committee will hold its second-to-last monthly meeting. The committee is negotiating a proposed 2026 transportation operating fund ballot measure to send to the state legislature for authorization, after Senator Wiener was forced to pull last year's SB 1031 due to opposition from Santa Clara County. There is currently significant doubt on the committee that a measure can successfully get through first the political compromise process and second the public campaign and vote, and the options under consideration are resultantly conservative.
Dozens of advocacy organizations are working via the Voices for Public Transportation coalition to push the operating measure forward, and they've called for turnout at Monday's meeting to comment via email, Zoom, or in person to support the regional measure.
RSVP to comment [here](https://www.caltrain.com/media/34083/download).
Caltrain's Gilroy service is the canary in the coal mine for the "fiscal cliff." Unless they shut down this extremely expensive service, the evidence suggests they aren't even trying to avoid a fiscal cliff. Either it doesn't exist or they don't care. If they truly had a dire fiscal cliff this would already be shut down and the entire diesel fleet sold off!
Gleaming red and white hulls of electric trains will whir into stations across the South Bay and Peninsula this weekend, whisking passengers along electrified lines with cleaner, more reliable transit.
That is, unless they live south of San Jose.
From Diridon Station to Gilroy, the familiar, hulking diesel locomotives will rumble along for years to come.
After years of planning and construction, Caltrain is fully launching rail electrification this weekend, showing off trains that will provide faster service and smoother, quieter rides with better Wi-Fi and outlets at every seat. Because the electric trains accelerate and slow down much faster than diesel trains, service will increase by 20%, offering between 75 and 104 weekday trips from most stations.
But even as Caltrain electrifies its fleet and retools its schedules, the more than 100,000 residents of south Santa Clara County will be left behind to rely on diesel trains that offer a fraction of the daily trips and no weekend service. While local leaders hope to push for more and better train options for those residents, the path forward is limited by funding issues and an obscure, 30-year-old contract dictating the ownership of the train lines in the South Bay.
“It’s really unfortunate that the electrification will end in San Jose and not be a part of South County,” said Morgan Hill Mayor Mark Turner. “We need more transit … we are constantly struggling with how to do more with less.
While South County passengers used to be able to get on one train and ride it to or from San Francisco, they will now need to swap trains in San Jose. Caltrain, however, says the transfers will be coordinated so passengers can simply walk across the platform once their train comes in.
Additionally, the stations south of Tamien station in San Jose only offer 4 round trips (for a total of 8 trips a day) and do not offer weekend service.
Local leaders say these issues are part of a history of south county being left behind in transit. Gilroy Mayor Marie Blankley, who serves on the VTA board, recalled seeing a Santa Clara County transportation study that simply excluded areas south of San Jose. In recent years, she and other local advocates have formed partnerships with local transit providers and pushed to include south county in the conversation. Last September, that advocacy bore fruit when Caltrain introduced a fourth train to Gilroy using Measure B funds from VTA, bringing them up from three round trips.
Still, Caltrain has struggled with low ridership, down around 60% this summer compared to the months before the COVID-19 pandemic, the company is expected to operate in the red in the next fiscal year. Ridership in South County hovers at just over a tenth of that of San Jose alone.
While Blankley acknowledges that growth is in part driven by ridership, she holds that more trains would bring along more riders, noting that the addition of the 4th train saw ridership in the South County jump up by a third. “I’m convinced people would ride if it made sense to do so. When it is convenient, when it works for you, you want to use it,” said Blankley. “The service has to be one that you can reasonably count on. And Gilroy and Morgan Hill have not had that yet.”
Though Sam Sargent, director of Strategy and Policy for Caltrain, admits that financial restrictions make expanding in south county more difficult, he says Caltrain has discussed finding public funding with the help of the VTA to bring a fifth train to south county.
So far Caltrain has changed 3 damage pantographs. One hit a hanging wire and another hit a puse break sign that fell. I got picture of them if anyone wants to see them.
Please continue comments in this thread. The August open thread seems permanently bugged, with newer comments not appearing. The tech support here is worth every penny I pay for it, which is zero :)
ReplyDeleteReality Check commented on the old thread, and pointed out that if clicking "load more" the invisible comments gets loaded. Thanks!
DeleteUnfortunately the # thingie to go to the right comment when following either the links in the upper right hand side or RSS feed don't work directly. At least in Firefox just activating the URL field and pressing enter will take you to the correct comment.
Seems like the "load more" thingie should really also follow the # thingie, but don't.
Btw, also seems like we are writing too many comments :) The limit for the "load more" to show up seems to be 200 comments :D
https://support.google.com/blogger/thread/208096732/how-can-i-increase-comment-limit?hl=en
Also, maybe edit this blog post to include Reality Checks two comments on the previous post,
Delete"Caltrain will present its draft 10-year Capital Improvement Plan, which includes level boarding, at tonight’s September CAC meeting."
https://www.caltrain.com/media/34083/download
https://www.caltrain.com/meetings/2024/09/jpb-citizens-advisory-committee
and
"Alstom ‘Buy America’ lawsuit may stall Brightline West’s Siemens train deal""
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-09-16/-buy-america-feud-risks-200-mile-an-hour-rail-from-vegas-to-la?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0aWNsZSIsImlhdCI6MTcyNjUwMTI2MCwiZXhwIjoxNzI3MTA2MDYwLCJhcnRpY2xlSWQiOiJTSkVGNUJEV1JHRzAwMCIsImJjb25uZWN0SWQiOiI4NjdEMUZFOUNCNjM0QUU3OThCOUM4RTRCMDMzN0UxMyJ9.NX9m5_rYC4sAdlnNeMdawWGHCh0Z9jR5dlT8Klt4xT8
(or we can just discuss it anyways :) )
According to the draft 10-year capital plan, Caltrain plans an entirely new signal and control system, new CCTV, intrusion detection, fencing, fiber optics, communications, etc.? Is there a real need for this or have the consultants said "there are risks" and "systems are aging?"
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, it seems 80% of the plan will be invisible to customers (besides some mini-high platforms and new Redwood City station).
A 10 year plan not including level boarding all the way along the line? Weird.
DeleteThe other parts seems reasonable. Btw re fiber optics, I think an important thing for both Caltrain and Cali HSR would be to run extra fiber lines and rent out them to anyone who wants to use them, highest bidder. Sure, you can run fiber optics along power lines, and you can use radio links for communications, but offering an additional "route" for telecom could bring in some extra profit.
Caltrain staff says they have suffered numerous accidental fiber damaging incidents at the hands of various construction crews in recent years. In many or most cases, repairs were “temporary.” So the CIP fiber stuff involves more proper / permanent repairs in addition to something about getting set to rent out or lease excess (currently “dark”) fiber capacity.
DeleteOh sweet summer child... let's not whitewash this one. The reason the fiber optic cables are so severely patched up is that the CBOSS subcontractor tasked with installing them was specifically directed not to bury them where it was easiest to dig, because the pole foundations would soon go there. The subcontractor not only disregarded this direction and quickly buried the fiber optic cables right where the foundations would go, but fraudulently falsified as-built drawings to show the cables were installed as directed. Fast forward to pole foundation installation, and the "potholing" process (exploratory digging) kept turning up the stupid cables. This caused huge delays and costs as pole foundations had to be redesigned and/or the cables spliced and moved out of the way. You may remember the acronym for this was "DSC" or "Discrepant Site Conditions" and the electrification contractor made some serious bank on DSC change orders. This info turned up in the CBOSS lawsuit, if anybody wants to go digging for the lurid details. In short, it is a giant steaming heap of incompetence and outright fraud that got us to the point where the cables need replacing from "accidental" damage.
DeleteSo, what has CBOSS (which never delivered *anything*) cost the public at this point?
DeleteMost assuredly over $300 million.
Over $500 million yet? Quite possibly! Who can say? Who could even venture to guess? Numbers are social constructs, the past is no guide to the future, and FISCAL CLIFF SEND MORE MONEY.
Also, where was today's Caltrain CEO and where was Caltrain's former CEO when CBOSS was conceived ... approved ... funded ... contracted .. funded some more ... funded MORE AND MORE AND MORE ... and – as 100% accurately predicted, right here on caltrain-hsr.blogspot.com –, abjectly failed? I mean, you can't just *disappear* a half billion dollars of the public's cash with *zero* consequences, can you? *Can you????*
Is (attempted) cable theft a problem when it comes to fiber optics? (i.E. thieves not knowing what they are doing trying to steal fiber optics, or fiber optics being damaged when actual cable theft happens).
DeleteComparison/whatnot: In Sweden the common practice is to put concrete trays/troughs, with concrete lids on top, along rail lines, for various cables. Not sure if those are used for fiber optics too, or only electrical cables. This makes it blatantly obvious where the wires are, and as a bonus they form a decent walkway for workers so they don't have to walk on gravel. The problems with cable theft seems to mostly affect thicker metal cables though, in particular grounding wires (which in absolute worst case can result in signalling equipment being destroyed due to the overhead electrification current going through the signalling cables rather than the correct ground path. This problem would likely apply no matter how you do electrification though; hard to bury the connections to the actual rails).
ReplyDeleteCity Beautiful on YouTube did a video about Salesforce transit center. Probably mostly nothing new to most readers here, but still.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5o3YX9SS2MU
I have to admit that I didn't know that Link21 is trying to decide on either building a BART tunnel or a mainline railway tunnel. I would think that a mainline tunnel would give the most bang-for-the-bucks.
I tried searching what the time table looked like before the pandemic but couldn't find it :(
Today there are four lines sharing the current tunnel and each runs every 20 minute (looking at the time table from 7AM on a Friday, assuming this is the schedule for rush hour week days). This means approximately a train every five minutes, and to me that means that the current tunnel can host at least twice as many trains.
Btw the video states that BART can't share right of way with regular trains due to gauge differences. I don't think this is true since the difference is wide enough to likely fit tracks for both gauges. It's rather a matter of mixing FRA style crash worthy heavy trains and ligher non-FRA style trains on the same line at the same time that I would think hinders sharing the track bed. Also heavy trains needs to be at bit further apart time wise so it would be hard to mix things anyways.
But most importantly I think that it's questionable to have BART be the main rapid transit options between downtown SF and the further away stations on the east side of the bay.
Link21 has been implying for some time that they are leaning toward mainline--which you're correct is the best decision, as it provides HSR benefits in addition to higher-speed/longer-distance regional rail. For decades before the pandemic, it was assumed that a second transbay tube would be for BART--which is part of why a transbay route for HSR to get to SF was not seriously considered, even by Altamont advocates. This seems to have been assumed for several reasons. One, BART ridership was on a trendline to outgrow the existing tube in the near future, which it certainly no longer is. Two, it was ingrained in government planners' minds (and the general public's, though not the sort of people who comment here) that BART means modern frequent rapid transit and mainline means 1950s 'murican commuter rail (low frequency, slow trains, shit schedules, gallery cars, etc etc), so future rapid transit needs were assumed to be only addressable through more BART, not mainline rail (wtf is an s-bahn anyway). Three, agency turf wars over heavy rail in the inner Bay Area had always gone BART's way for half a century, and "BART" was assumed to mean the current BART system, not mainline trains with the BART logo on them. Point 1 is less of an issue post-pandemic, especially with BART's Transbay Core Capacity Program, which I'll expand on below. Point 2 is slowly (slowly!) becoming less of an issue as people see a glimmer of mainline rail becoming something better with electrified Caltrain. Point 3 is also becoming less relevant as BART-the-agency has gotten into the mainline business by operating Capitol Corridor--as evidenced by the BART-run Link21 study leaning in favor of mainline rail.
DeleteBefore the pandemic, BART could run max 24 trains per hour through the tube, averaging just under 9 cars per train out of a max of 10. There were four constraints: rolling stock fleet size, traction power, train control, and train storage space. Transbay Core Capacity will expand the tube's capacity to 30 10-car trains per hour by addressing all four constraints. New traction power facilities have been built in SF and are still being built in the East Bay. Extra cars for the new fleet are now being delivered in addition to the original order which replaced the old fleet. Communications-based train control is being installed, although it's taking a maddeningly long time. And an expanded storage yard will be built in Hayward, although costs seem extreme. All of this will result in nearly a 40% increase in transbay capacity--all without building a new BART tube. And with ridership still below half of pre-pandemic, BART isn't likely to need a second tube for a long time.
You are right that gauge is the least of the issues with mixing BART and mainline traffic on one track bed. On top of crash standards, BART already runs a heavily-branched system at (in the past and again someday) very high utilization, so exposing it to delayed mainline trains would cause cascading delays across the BART network.
Your final point is also correct, BART's average speeds aren't high enough (due to many urban stations) to serve distances beyond what it already does (or indeed to serve the outer limits of what it already serves).
All of this means that there's an opening now to invest in a mainline transbay tube that will meet the Bay's HSR and longer-distance regional rail needs. With BART-the-system below capacity for the next few decades and BART-the-agency figuring out that it can get in on the mainline rail game, the factors that previously all but ensured BART-the-system would take a future second tube are gone.
Apart from the inadequate collision “buff strength” of lightweight aluminum BART trains, the BART ROW loading gauge (clearances) and structure load limits preclude simply dual-gauging to allow shared-use with FRA-compliant standard passenger rail equipment.
Delete@MiaM, now you see yet again dysfunctional Bay Area transportation planning. Obviously a new tunnel should be "mainline," or conventional heavy rail, standard gauge plus be electrified overhead. It would allow all manner rail service not only in the Bay Area but regionally, which means also serving the northern San Joaquin Valley, including the commuter shed of the Bay Area actually beyond it plus obviously the Sacramento area. It also might one day offer potential along the East Bay for inter-city, meaning long-distance, service. That might include reaching the Central Valley and continuing to Southern California like the high-speed rail project is supposed to do, or also serve the "Coast Line" to Paso Robles and San Luis Obispo and onward to L.A. or even San Diego on that route. It's slow, but would see some interest, and an East Bay as well as Peninsula service option would be welcomed.
Delete@Bryan Anderson, conventional or "heavy" rail has never been interpreted, nor has it been intended, only to be commuter rail be it metro only or regional someday with a new Altamont Pass route, improved Capitol Corridor-Sacramento ("I-80 corridor") route, or highly-desirable, worth discussing since they're the best, but won't happen Dublin Canyon Tri-Valley plus eastern Contra Costa and Stockton or new Sacramento routes. Rail service has always been thought of as at least regional and most have wanted at least some effort at better inter-city travel. The real biggie in this state has always been connecting the Los Angeles area to the southern Central Valley (Tulare Basin south of the San Joaquin Valley proper), and were that done, there would be finally some good rail interest given that would be a faster route than the Coast Route, pretty as the latter is. I'd like the Coast Route sped up, too.
Delete@Anonymous
DeleteYou and I agree of course that a mainline tube should serve all of these things, and finally Link21 is talking about them too. I am referring to past discussions of a second tube, which seem to have always assumed that it would "obviously" be BART since that was the "obvious" way to serve regional transit needs, with mainline rail long being relegated to an afterthought.
This post seems relevant to the Link21 discussion. Here is an illustration of what a single-bore tunnel might look like. I am relieved that all signs point to a standard gauge regional rail solution.
DeleteDefinitely relevant, as is your earlier post "Down the Tubes with DTX" [0] and the linked Deutsche Bahn transbay through-running study [1], which show the critical importance of a mainline Link21.
DeleteDB found a capacity of 20 tph if all trains through-run (or 14 through-run and 6 turn from the west). What DB did not apparently consider is the capacity if some trains turn from the *east* and never continue down the peninsula (and avoid the poorly designed western throat), as I argue HSR should do. Maybe some off-peak HSR could run through, but nothing that strangles Caltrain at peak time. 4th and Townsend HSR is dumb, airport HSR is overrated, Redwood City or Palo Alto HSR is marginal, and there's a better way to get HSR from Altamont to San Jose.
[0] https://caltrain-hsr.blogspot.com/2021/09/down-tubes-with-dtx.html
[1] https://www.tjpa.org/files/2021/09/Item5_Through-Running-Operations-Analysis-to-Accom.-a-Potential-Future-East-Bay-Connection.pdf
With less than 40% of its pre-pandemic ridership, Caltrain faces a fiscal cliff when federal pandemic operating funds run out in 2026, that will force a major cut in service if not averted.
ReplyDeleteAt 9:30 Monday morning, the MTC Transportation Revenue Measure Select Committee will hold its second-to-last monthly meeting. The committee is negotiating a proposed 2026 transportation operating fund ballot measure to send to the state legislature for authorization, after Senator Wiener was forced to pull last year's SB 1031 due to opposition from Santa Clara County. There is currently significant doubt on the committee that a measure can successfully get through first the political compromise process and second the public campaign and vote, and the options under consideration are resultantly conservative.
Dozens of advocacy organizations are working via the Voices for Public Transportation coalition to push the operating measure forward, and they've called for turnout at Monday's meeting to comment via email, Zoom, or in person to support the regional measure.
RSVP to comment [here](https://www.caltrain.com/media/34083/download).
[Agenda](https://mtc.ca.gov/meetings-events/transportation-revenue-measure-select-committee-2024-09-23t163000)
Caltrain's Gilroy service is the canary in the coal mine for the "fiscal cliff." Unless they shut down this extremely expensive service, the evidence suggests they aren't even trying to avoid a fiscal cliff. Either it doesn't exist or they don't care. If they truly had a dire fiscal cliff this would already be shut down and the entire diesel fleet sold off!
DeleteCities north of San Jose will enjoy more frequent electric trains, but south SCCo. will be left with only 4 roundtrip diesel trains
DeleteBy LUIS MELECIO-ZAMBRANO
Gleaming red and white hulls of electric trains will whir into stations across the South Bay and Peninsula this weekend, whisking passengers along electrified lines with cleaner, more reliable transit.
That is, unless they live south of San Jose.
From Diridon Station to Gilroy, the familiar, hulking diesel locomotives will rumble along for years to come.
After years of planning and construction, Caltrain is fully launching rail electrification this weekend, showing off trains that will provide faster service and smoother, quieter rides with better Wi-Fi and outlets at every seat. Because the electric trains accelerate and slow down much faster than diesel trains, service will increase by 20%, offering between 75 and 104 weekday trips from most stations.
But even as Caltrain electrifies its fleet and retools its schedules, the more than 100,000 residents of south Santa Clara County will be left behind to rely on diesel trains that offer a fraction of the daily trips and no weekend service. While local leaders hope to push for more and better train options for those residents, the path forward is limited by funding issues and an obscure, 30-year-old contract dictating the ownership of the train lines in the South Bay.
“It’s really unfortunate that the electrification will end in San Jose and not be a part of South County,” said Morgan Hill Mayor Mark Turner. “We need more transit … we are constantly struggling with how to do more with less.
While South County passengers used to be able to get on one train and ride it to or from San Francisco, they will now need to swap trains in San Jose. Caltrain, however, says the transfers will be coordinated so passengers can simply walk across the platform once their train comes in.
Additionally, the stations south of Tamien station in San Jose only offer 4 round trips (for a total of 8 trips a day) and do not offer weekend service.
Local leaders say these issues are part of a history of south county being left behind in transit. Gilroy Mayor Marie Blankley, who serves on the VTA board, recalled seeing a Santa Clara County transportation study that simply excluded areas south of San Jose. In recent years, she and other local advocates have formed partnerships with local transit providers and pushed to include south county in the conversation. Last September, that advocacy bore fruit when Caltrain introduced a fourth train to Gilroy using Measure B funds from VTA, bringing them up from three round trips.
Still, Caltrain has struggled with low ridership, down around 60% this summer compared to the months before the COVID-19 pandemic, the company is expected to operate in the red in the next fiscal year. Ridership in South County hovers at just over a tenth of that of San Jose alone.
While Blankley acknowledges that growth is in part driven by ridership, she holds that more trains would bring along more riders, noting that the addition of the 4th train saw ridership in the South County jump up by a third. “I’m convinced people would ride if it made sense to do so. When it is convenient, when it works for you, you want to use it,” said Blankley. “The service has to be one that you can reasonably count on. And Gilroy and Morgan Hill have not had that yet.”
Though Sam Sargent, director of Strategy and Policy for Caltrain, admits that financial restrictions make expanding in south county more difficult, he says Caltrain has discussed finding public funding with the help of the VTA to bring a fifth train to south county.
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So far Caltrain has changed 3 damage pantographs. One hit a hanging wire and another hit a puse break sign that fell. I got picture of them if anyone wants to see them.
ReplyDeletePhase break*
DeletePics or it didn't happen. :)
DeleteHappy to post the pic if you send it to me, contact info in "About This Blog" section in the right margin of the page.
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