From: jeremy@classic.asd.sgi.com (Jeremy Higdon)
Subject: Re: rail technologies (was: Re: San Mateo County BART/SFO Resolution)
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc.  Mountain View, CA
Date: Tue, 25 Aug 1992 23:50:32 GMT

In article <17e2duINNltv@darkstar.UCSC.EDU>, fuzzface@cats.ucsc.edu (Aaron Priven) writes:
> 
> In article <oratqs0@sgi.sgi.com> jeremy@classic.asd.sgi.com (Jeremy Higdon) writes:
> 
> > I don't see why they couldn't use overhead
> >catenary rather than third rail for it, if grade separation is a
> >problem.
> 
> I would hesitate to have a driverless system cross traffic.  To say
> the least.  The idea of children running in front of a driverless
> train is *not* a pretty sight.  Of course, you can't stop a CalTrain
> on a dime either, but still...

As you say, a Caltrain wouldn't be able to stop anyway . . . .
But you're probably right.  You would want some sort of human
in the cab for emergencies if there weren't complete grade
separation.  That would increase costs somewhat, but not as
much as it would if the human were a driver.  BART babysitters
get paid (or at least at one time got paid) quite a bit less
than bus and LRT drivers.

> 
> >I don't think this would be so great.  Light rail is too slow to
> >be an express line. 
> 
> Why (he asks ignorantly) can't one run heavy rail and light rail on
> the same track?  Why couldn't one build heavy rail cars low enough for
> light rail cars to use the same catenary on the same track?  Yes,
> drivers and cabs would cost money, but you'd save some of it back in
> flexibility of equipment, and if one line of the rail system went down
> you'd just detour the cars around to another line.

You could run them on the same track, but they couldn't pass each other,
so the heavy rail would be limited to the speed of the light rail.

> 
> I just don't like to see people transferring all the time.  It reduces
> ridership.

The idea was that you could get the local to an express stop and then
get the express.  If you didn't want to transfer, you could take the
local, but it would be slower.  The need to transfer is a known disadvantage
of high capacity rail transit, especially in Santa Clara county.  The
basic model is drive/bike/walk/bus to a train station near home, take
the train to a station near work, and then drive/bike/walk/bus to your
work.  With buses, there is a much better possibility of a bus line
running local in your neighborhood, then taking the HOV lane at 55mph,
and then exiting the HOV lane near your work.  Lines like the 122 and
521(? Gilroy to Lockheed) follow this model.  They should pick
up a fair number of riders once the HOV lanes are completed on 101 this
year.

If there were enough demand, you could even envision a sort of airline
like hub where the buses would meet for timed transfers, where you could
transfer from your neighborhood bus to you workplace bus.  Much like the
airlines, there could be direct service for certain neighborhood/workplace
combos.  This system would depend on having having reliable ROW for the
buses, so that they didn't get disrupted by traffic.

Rail is good for trunkline service, like SJ to SF where there (should be)
lots of riders traveling the same direction.

> 
> >My fantasy would be a mix of Skytrain-like automated transit (ALRT),
> >high speed rail, and bus service.  Put the high speed rail on the major
> >corridors with a parallel ALRT for local service, 
> 
> I find it difficult to imagine ALRT on a corridor such as the
> J-extension in San Francisco or the Santa Clara light rail, which is
> what I am thinking of when I talk about local light rail service.

Well, I think the Santa Clara light rail was a misapplication of rail
service.  Any service characteristic you could mention could have been
done better with a bus-only transitway, like providing direct service
to Almaden valley all day long (would not require a transfer to get to
Almaden valley, the bus could continue down Almaden expressway), or
using the HOV lanes on 87 to bypass downtown for North SJ commuters,
or using the transitway to provide service from South SJ to any of the
other commute (or otherwise) destinations (such as Lockheed), or
providing skip-stop express service.

A good example would be the Lockheed commute.  With light rail, the
trip from say, Snell to Lockheed, will be about one hour.  Once there,
you will have to transfer to a shuttle bus (unless your building is
near the main stop).
With a busway, you could have run a local service from Santa Teresa to
Ohlone, then non-stop to Lockheed via Guadalupe, 87, 101.  From Snell,
conservatively 35 minutes.  Naturally, the bus could take much closer to
your building.

How about getting to Shoreline industrial area from Ohlone Station?
LRT to Tamien (~10 minutes), transfer to Caltrain and ride to Castro
(~30 minutes), transfer to shuttle and ride to work (~15 minutes).  55
minutes.  And it will never get much better, and it will always require
two transfers and all the possibilities for missed connections that
entails.
Versus 25 minutes by car in moderate traffic, or 30-35 minutes by a
bus making stops along a Guadalupe busway and at Shoreline.


Sorry to go on about this.  Anyway, I don't remeber where the
J-line is, but it seems to me that the Geary corridor might be
an ideal candidate for a Skytrain-like system.

> 
>  =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

jeremy