From: fuzzface@cats.ucsc.edu (Aaron Priven)
Newsgroups: ba.transportation
Subject: Re: "The only sensible way to proceed"
Date: 23 Jul 92 21:00:28 GMT
Organization: University of California, Santa Cruz (College Eight)
NNTP-Posting-Host: am.ucsc.edu


In <14hcuaINN9i8@darkstar.UCSC.EDU> 
   (does anybody need these references?  They get inserted 
   automatically and I'd just as soon take them out to save bandwidth) 
I wrote: 
 
>>     Personally I'd be just as happy if trains didn't skip-stop, no 
>> matter how much Vaughn says that it's a virtue.  For one thing, it's 
>> very confusing to riders... This *could* be improved.
 
In <1992Jul21.220209.5241@ntmtv> adrian@ntmtv.UUCP (Adrian Brandt) writes:
 
>Improved, perhaps.  But I'd never get rid of it!
 
Well, I more or less convinced myself while writing that that with a 
real effort at rider education, skip-stopping COULD be made 
understandable and rational, if it was in addition to and not instead 
of higher frequency.  But I don't think the current system makes 
sense.
 
>|> but skip-stopping isn't terribly effective if you're sandwiched 
>|> between twenty-minute frequency trains (because the most time you
>|> can save is 19 minutes, right?).  
>
>A savings of 10, 15 or 19 minutes are nothing to sneeze at.  These can
>make a big difference, especially when it's 15 to 25% of your trip time.

Okay, it's something, but it's been touted here as one of the great 
advantages it has over BART, and I have to question that. 

>> Much of the CalTrain right of way has a third track along it.  I 
>> wonder what it would take to put it into use for true express service?  

>The "third" tracks you refer to are for freight use.  Many of them are
>unused and almost none can be used for an express CalTrain to swoosh
>by a "local" without upgrades.
  
Why the quotation marks?  I figured that they wouldn't be usable as 
is.  They look really lousy.  It seems to me that true expresses, that 
pass other trains during commute hours, would be a real plus.  Forget 
this skip stop nonsense.  Of course, it would cost money, but the 
*land* is there.

>> And I have one other question to ask: is there a total worldwide 
>> shortage of passenger rail cars, or else why does the JPB have to 
>> order brand new cars every time?

>Actually, the answer is yes, more or less.

Oh.  Oh well.  Maybe it's time to raid the historical museums.

--- begin responding to someone else ---

I wrote in <14hcuaINN9i8@darkstar.UCSC.EDU> :

>>For one thing, although I am the first to agree that the connection in 
>>San Francisco is quite poor, it is not entirely impossible to manage. 
>>Many people make that connection each day, either through jitneys or 
>>through MUNI or what have you.
 
In article <1992Jul22.191620.20875@ads.com> henry@ADS.COM (Henry Mensch) writes:
 
>as one who does this DAILY as a matter of necessity, i can tell you
>that this "connection" adds about one hour to my total travel time
>daily.  
 
Right.  It stinks.  But it doesn't stink so bad that NOBODY can use 
it.  I am responding here to comments -- such as the title of this 
thread -- that the first last and only reasonable thing to do at this 
point to improve CalTrain is to improve the San Francisco connection, 
and that things like frequency and other aspects of CalTrain are 
irrelevant.  Such comments have been made.

>>... I disagree strongly that "a shelter and a slab" is 
>>all one needs for a station that's going to *attract* passengers.  

>agreed; there still is no phone at hayward park (as far as i can see
>from the train), and any shelter there is pretty negligible.

In 1980 there wasn't any phone any nearer than Borel Square.  I don't 
think, though, that just a pay phone will cut it!  Stations do cost 
money, and although BART style stations may seem a bit excessive at 
first, they really are a lot nicer than CalTrain stations, and the 
money that is spent for this *is* worth it.

>> This is the old "frequency" drum that I am beating again.

>it used to be up to two hours.  they're working on this problem now 
>...
 
One hour is still totally insufficient.  CalTrain's corridor should 
be able to support twenty minute frequency at peak hours.

>>  4) Another reason people don't take CalTrain is because they are
>>confused about the system.  CalTrain's fares are simple enough, and of
>>course there's only one line, but many riders get confused about skip
>>stopping.

>these people can't read a schedule?  they're posted at every station
>(even forlorn castro station at rengstorff and central).  they can
>also call the 800 number and find out what they need to know.  not
>rocket science.

It isn't as simple as you make out.  Schedules aren't terribly easy to 
follow, for one thing (it's so easy to skip a line or something).  And 
there's no easy way to figure out which stations a particular train 
stops at.  One mistake, causing you to be an hour late to work (it can 
happen!) will turn you off public transit forever.  I really do think 
CalTrain is overly complicated.

>"we've parked your car on the giraffe level of the garage.  have a
>nice day."

What is your problem with this?  The execution of any decent system 
depends on giving information *redundantly*.  You want to eliminate as 
much as possible the likelihood of making mistakes.  Things *can* and 
*do* go wrong and the simpler you make information the less will go 
wrong.  Sure, things should work fine if you sit down and work out the 
schedule, but who has time for that when you're late for something and 
the train is about to pull out so you'd better run?  
 
Besides, transit systems *do* have to be taken by the mentally 
retarded, the illiterate, and young children.
 
>> When a good proportion of your riders are going from
>>Menlo Park to San Mateo and all sorts of other similar pairs of
>>points, skip-stopping loses much of its appeal. 
>
>so few trains skip-stop that this is a non-issue.  quit exaggerating.
 
I disagree.  Enough trains skip-stop that it is easy to get confused 
if you're distracted.
 
 =Aaron=
-- 
Aaron Priven, aaronrp@ucscb.ucsc.edu or fuzzface@cats.ucsc.edu
        "Men make history, but they do not do so under 
         conditions of their own choosing." -- Karl Marx
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