From: Richards, Gary
Sent: Thursday, April 01, 2010 1:52 PM
To: John Murphy
Subject: RE: Mercury News: Caltrain story
Hi John.
We are working on this story. Can you tell me what impact it would have on you? Can you get back to me asap? Thanks
CALTRAIN LIKELY TO CUT HALF ITS SERVICE, STOP WEEKEND, MIDDAY AND NIGHT TRAINS
Caltrain officials on Thursday said the agency has gone broke and will almost assuredly need to wipe out half its trains. There will be no service on weekends, and on weekdays trains will stop running during the midday and after 8 p.m. Officials said at this rate they may go belly up and completely halt service before the agency can finish its rescue plan to electrify trains, which will be much cheaper, by 2015. It comes as San Mateo, Santa Clara and San Francisco counties – which provide about 40 percent of Caltrain’s revenue – said they will cut about 70 percent of their contributions. The cuts could start as early as this fall and be complete by next spring. Rosenberg
Gary Richards
San Jose Mercury News
Mr. Roadshow just won an award for his journalism, I'll give him credit, he pulled my email addresses out of the depths of his mailboxes, wherein lay an email to him where I mentioned I take Caltrain. And he did it to get a source for someone else's story. Long live journalism.
I was quoted in the story in the Merc.
John Murphy rides Caltrain from San Francisco to work in Santa Clara, balancing the commute with taking care of his young son. He said the midday cuts would be "horrible" and would force him and his wife to buy a second car, move closer to his office or switch jobs.
"All the jobs I can do are down here (in the Valley)," Murphy said. "My wife is in marketing — all her jobs are up (in San Francisco). Caltrain makes it work."
Among other things, this means no service for Giants or Sharks games. That should make things fun for the CHP. One of the biggest contingents on Caltrain is Stanford Grad Students, who must compete for housing in Palo Alto with the likes of Steve Jobs, so they often live up or down the Caltrain line - with the added convenience that all Stanford employees get a free Caltrain pass. But if your first class is at noon - sorry bud, last train to PA is at 9:30 AM. And if you are working late on some research, instead of that 10:30 PM train, you have to be out at 8 PM.
But who cares - what do Stanford Grads do - do they even provide any jobs? Sergey? Larry?
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8 comments:
Unfortunately, Stanford grad students (like me) have had to pay our own way on Caltrain for quite a few years now...
Stanford employees (Teaching and Research Assistants apparently don't qualify) still get passes.
But yes, I was almost always on a "mid-day" train (I'd ride the bike back home to San Mateo at night). Such is the life of a grad student.
Somehow, we need to figure out how to get public and semi-public agencies (think mass-transit & post office) out of death-spiral moves: raise rates and cut service to "solve" a money crunch, when the main effect of those moves is to lose users and even more money...
The California High Speed Rail Blog has a story on this. "No April Fools...."
The key issue is the fiscal conservatives are justifiably against subsidized public transit: that's consistent with their philosophy. Why should someone who pays more to live close to walk and rides or walks subsidize someone to ride down the peninsula? The problem is these same conservatives should be equally fantical about eliminating subsidies from driving. No more free ride on Hwy 101 or 280.
If it was a $20 each way trip up and down these roads, tolls + fuel tax, then Caltrain would have no issue running trains every 10 minutes all day long.
Yeeikes. I don't know why I expected Caltrain to hold up better than Muni, but this is a real surprise.
I wonder how Stanford will respond. When I was an undergrad, my little dinky liberal arts college used to run a packed shuttle bus to Portland, a half hour away, every hour throughout the day and until midnight on weekends. There is enough money floating around at Stanford that they could start running their own private shuttle system like the tech companies. That'll be the death of Caltrain.
I don't mean to throw kindhearted Caltrain Conductors under the bus (or train), but if conductors stopped letting ticket violators off the hook, all the tickets written could do something to pave the way to being a little more in the black. I see or hear at least one rider getting out of a citation about once a week, in 1/2 a car on one trip. Imagine how many times it happens across the system in a given day.
That is, assuming the money from citations actually go to funding Caltrain, which considering bureaucracy, probably isn't the case.
Doubtful Kit. You either nail regular customers who screwed up and will get really annoyed(I forgot to buy my pass yesterday. Showed my stack of the last 12 and he said "buy your pass"). Or people you'll never collect from.
I agree: I don't see many obvious fare evaders on the train. Of course, if it went full honor system, that would change. There's enough citations issued right now to keep folks like me in line.
The root of the problem is the completely disproportionate subsidy for driving versus rail. The rental value of the land taken up by 101 and 280 combined, alone, is an order of magnitude higher than Caltrain's budget even after factoring in the land taken up by the tracks. That's a real cost, one of many.
I agree: I don't see many obvious fare evaders on the train. Of course, if it went full honor system, that would change. There's enough citations issued right now to keep folks like me in line.
The root of the problem is the completely disproportionate subsidy for driving versus rail. The rental value of the land taken up by 101 and 280 combined, alone, is an order of magnitude higher than Caltrain's budget even after factoring in the land taken up by the tracks. That's a real cost, one of many.
@Dan - the 'fiscal conservatives' would respond that the highways are the reason the land's value is so high. No roads, no development, and no high property values (and the property taxes that go with them).
Kinda funny considering the whole idea of a national highway system started out as a New Deal liberal make work program.
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