From: adrian@ntmtv.UUCP (Adrian Brandt)
Subject: Re: Alliance for a Paving Moratorium (Alert)
Organization: Northern Telecom Inc, Mountain View, CA
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 23:07:04 GMT

In article <1993Jan6.230216.21279@pbhya.PacBell.COM>, whheydt@pbhya.PacBell.COM (Wilson Heydt) writes:
|> When was the last time you saw--or heard of--*any* heavy rail system
|> normally using 2.5 minute headways?

At home I have an excerpt of the schedule of trains departing the Transbay
Terminal.  There are something like 130 trains and/or streetcars in a 2-hour
span.  The Transbay Terminal is one hell of a high throughput train station.
It had a design capacity to handle something like 55,000 people per hour!
Factiod: the removal of 2 rails from the Bay Bridge reduced the people-
carrying capacity of the Bay Bridge enormously at the expense of vehicle
moving capacity.  Shouldn't we focus on moving people, not vehicles?


|> Time and again in this forum you've seen folks agree that raising gas
|> taxes to pay the way for car-connected expenses is reasonable.

Yeah, I hear Clinton is getting closer to doing just that: raising the
federal gas tax.


|> Why should the drivers be asked to pay for the roads--which they use
|> *and* the mass transit which they don't?

Drivers "use" mass transit in that those that do are getting out of the
drivers' way and alleviating the need for that new lane or interchange
or bridge or whatever.  Also, I think society, drivers included, benefit
when there's something for people to ride when they can't or don't want to
drive because they're too young/old/poor/drunk/scared/tired/incompetent/
disabled/nervous/upset or tired of traffic or parking or driving itself.
Getting around is a key part of being a fully functioning, productive,
happy, autonomous member of society.  Good mass transit ensures that
people can get around even if they can't or don't want to own and operate
a car.


|> And media reports suggest that *in*spite*of*the*costs* some of the
|> supposed 'transit utopias' are following the US lead.

I don't think so.


|> to explain *why* people appear to prefer to drive--in spite of all
|> that is done (both carrots and sticks)--to get them onto mass transit.
|> Until the 'transit lobby' *understands* what makes those drivers tick
|> the systems will suffer from all the noted faults.

Good point.


|> Sure.  Specfically for CalTrain it [dead-heading] isn't done. But then..
|> Specifically for CalTrain the trains don't run on 2.5 minute headways,
|> either.   The later condition would require the former--absent truly
|> awesome amounts of rolling stock being available.  Specifically for
|> BART--it effectively *is* done--and that's with 15 minute headways.

Actually, CalTrain has a pretty strong reverse commute.  If they made
an effort to get that market it might be pretty balanced.  As it is,
the reverse-commute is the fastest growing in terms of ridership.  CalTrain
and its bureaucracy has been slow to recognize this by reflecting it in
train service.  The addition of the reverse-commute express trains were
a step in this direction though.


|> think of me as dense....  Could you be more specific?  Is it NIBYism?
|> Is it politicians that won't pay more money into subsidies?  Is it a
|> lack of convincing ridership projections?

The CalTrain/BART "question" is part of it.  There are many who hold out
(false, IMO) hope that BART will come to the rescue "someday soon".  It
is hard to gauge the effect of this but it *definitely* is a factor at
all levels (right on up to the top deciscion-makers).  As long as the
CalTrain/BART "question" is unresolved, there is a certain reluctance
to invest in a system that some feel will be replaced "someday".
CalTrain also has an image problem and has poor visibility at all levels
when compared to it's sleeker-looking, sexier competition.   CalTrain
doesn't have as many political champions or as large a constituency.
The bigger something is the more support it has because more people
are "touched" by it in some way.  They have some sort of interest in it,
be it monetary, or practical, or psychological, or otherwise.  That's
part of why the DOD likes to subcontract out big controversial projects
all over the place...  Kind of like BART's directors and supporters want
to do with BART... As do CalTrain supporters with CalTrian... etc.


|> None of us can judge if the studies are correct  or not until the
|> experiment is tried.  The question becomes (I think) is--are the
|> studies *convincing* to the folks with the purse strings?  If not--all
|> the studies in the world won't help.  Try appealing to greed or other
|> forms of self interest.  History suggests it's much more effective.

Exactly.  CalTrain doesn't appeal to greed and self-interest nearly as
much as the sleeker mega-bucks BART system does.  There isn't as large
a constituency for CalTrain as for BART in the Bay Area.  Since CalTrain
is viewed as a relatively infrequent commuter service, even many San
Mateans and Santa Clarans are relatively indifferent to it.  Everybody
knows BART runs frequently, etc., and that CalTrain doesn't.  So
naturally your average "everyman" wants BART.  There aren't as many
votes and photo-ops and ribbon cuttings and ceremonies and big bucks
and political "capital" in "merely" upgrading CalTrain as there are in
building a new BART line/extension.


|> No doubt CalTrain knows where folks get on--but do they know where folks
|> get *off*.  Wtihout the later datum, the 'miles' part of the equation is
|> pure guesswork.

If I remember the statistics correctly, the average CalTrain rider rides
about 22 miles while the average BART rider rides something like 11 miles.
I don't know how CalTrain figured this out, but I understand that they
do conduct passenger surveys and on-board passenger counts and with a
little statistical analysis, it seems like you can figure such stuff out
pretty easily.



|> If the knowledge in the transit businesses in the Bay Area mirrors
|> the statements made here, the operators are clueless about why their
|> systems are running empty so much of the time.

Yeah, I'm afraid you're probably right.  (In most cases, anyway.)

|> >This, of course, will lead to rapid abandonment of all mass transit.
|> 
|> If the operators can do no better--then that's as it should be.  I
|> would have hoped for better, but spending good money after bad is
|> hardly a way to build an effective transit infrstructure.

But I think we (collectively) generally want mass transit.  I happen to
think that we *need* it and that without it this would not be as nice a
place to be and live and work, etc.  So rather than abandoning it all
because it isn't run so great, let's work to improve it (sort of vague,
I know).  But even if the smallest fraction of people took an active
interest in watching over and watchdogging transit operators and the
regional agencies like MTC, transit would be much, much better.  But
then that could be said for anything the government does...

There are constantly obvious examples of inefficiency and waste in the
military or in NASA or whatever agency ... do you advocate their
abandonment too, since, as you said, "spending good money after bad
is harldly a way to build an effective <fill-in-blank>"?  That seems
a bit too simplistic to me.



|> wouldn't it be more effective to learn to sell CalTrain as effectively?
|> [as BART]
 
Yup.  A few "activist" volunteers are but voices in the winds.  Sometimes
we have an effect though...  Like yesterday when Senator Quentin Kopp
said he would withdraw, rewrite, and re-submit his ordinance to force
BART *into* SFO.  The part we (everyone, really) were killing him on
was Section 4 where he attacked the airport people-mover connection to
CalTrain.


|> CalTrain will go the way of all those companies that competed with
|> IBM in it's heyday.

For the sake of taxpayers, transit users, and the region, I hope not.


|> The same complaints wre made then--that IBM didn't make very good
|> computers (compared to the competition) but they wre *great* salesmen.
|> Well... IBM is still here (albeit, ailing), and most of it's
|> competition isn't.

It's a fairly apt comparison, I think.  The big dumb safe easy most
conservative thing to do was to go out and just buy IBM.  Bucking
this took a little more risk and guts.  You had to do a little more
research and get into more details and justification.  It was a harder
sell.  For your average person or politician, the same goes for BART:
its the "obvious" (knee-jerk) choice for *all* our rail transit needs.
Loudly and openly supporting CalTrain (or non-BART heavy rail) over
BART has politically more risky in the Bay Area.  It's a postition
you're going to have to defend over and over again.  It takes more
"intestinal fortitude".  I think that this is definitely changing,
however.  With each passing year, it seems people and especially
politicians are more and more willing to talk about/consider non-BART
options...  


|> The answer to politcs is to politic better than the other guy--and
|> (from your response) it appears that that's just what CalTrain has
|> signally *failed* to do.
   ^^^^^^^^
CalTrain's signals are working fine, thank you.  But seriously, you're
right.  CalTrain was entirely run by SP up until the early 80s (it
wasn't called "CalTrain" then either).  SP didn't do squat for the
service.  If anything they ran it into the ground.  They have a history
of driving passengers away so that they could abandon passenger rail
service that didn't fit their corporate image/goals any longer...
It's amazing the service improved and came back (if you can believe it)
to the extent it did under Caltrans.  Remember, Caltrans, the king of
California roads and highways, the teat of the California motorist,
essentially cut its "rail teeth" on CalTrain.  As most of you know,
Caltrans recently pulled out of CalTrain and there has been Yet Another
Transtition (YAT).  In short, CalTrain has been in flux and really
can't/didn't/doesn't benefit from BART's relatively stable organization
and managment.  (That's saying a lot, because BART seems to have a lot
of stuff going on behind the scenes too.  Especially on its board.)
From a leadership/management standpoint, BART is much older and more
mature (ossified, perhaps?) than CalTrain...  Unfortunatly, it is
frequently alleged that SamTrans staff (now linked with CalTrain) is
pretty ossified too.
 

|> (And remember--something perceived as a failure tends rapidly to
|> become one...)

That's right.  It's hard to beat a bad "rap" (or is that "rep"? :-).

|> Enough philosophy for one day.

Okay, whew!

-- 

Adrian Brandt (415) 940-2379
UUCP: ...!ames!ntmtv!adrian
ARPA: ntmtv!adrian@ames.arc.nasa.gov
Newsgroups: ba.transportation