From: fuzzface@cats.ucsc.edu (Aaron Priven)
Newsgroups: ba.transportation
Subject: Re:  East Bay -> Silicon Valley commute
Date: 21 Jul 92 16:19:40 GMT
Organization: University of California, Santa Cruz (College Eight)
NNTP-Posting-Host: am.ucsc.edu


Vaughn Wolffe writes:
 
>Wrapping the Bay with CalTrain would be cheaper, faster and
>could be done much sooner.

Jordan Hayes writes: 
>
>But then what?  Would I have to get off at Bette's to go to UCB?  Is
>Jack London Square the closest you could get me to Lake Merrit?  Would
>I have to go to Martinez to get to Concord?
>
>Face facts, for urban systems, going underground or above ground is
>essential for a useful system.
 
Well, presumably if one built new systems using standard rail, one 
could use existing standard rail to carry it.  I mean, BART may not go 
along standard gauge routes north of downtown Oakland, but south of 
downtown Oakland it does.  Of course it's single-track, and maybe UP 
wants to run trains along it too which might be a bit irritating if 
you're running a train on it each way every 20 minutes, but ... 
well...
 
   I can really see great advantage in using existing rail lines on 
the outer fringes of the metropolis that can connect directly to the 
"real" transit system.  I think it is a real shame that BART can't do 
this.  I also think something like BART is today -- not particularly 
broad-gauge third-rail or any of the other technical stuff that 
doesn't matter to the *consumers*, but with grade separated from all 
roads and crossings and with stations something like BART stations -- 
would be a better transit system for the Bay Area than something like 
CalTrain is today, or even like CalTrain would be with electric 
locomotives run from catenary wire, a terminal at the Transbay 
Terminal, and twenty-minute frequency from 6am to midnight.  Doesn't 
mean that the latter wouldn't be a great improvement.
 
>One more time with feeling: CalTrain is not BART.  BART is not
>CalTrain.  They serve different needs and functions.
 
   I disagree with this.  Both CalTrain and BART are primarily 
commuter railroads.  Both of them (together, mind) *could* be the 
seeds of a real urban transit system, and BART does already act as an 
urban subway in San Francisco, Oakland, and Berkeley.  CalTrain could 
easily act as an interurban between the old small-town downtowns on 
the Peninsula.  But mostly they bring people from the suburbs to 
downtown San Francisco, Oakland, and Berkeley.  I frankly don't 
understand why you think BART and CalTrain are so different.  I mean, 
they have different technologies, but they mostly serve the same 
purpose for their riders.  Enlighten me.
   
>The next person who compares CalTrain to BART as though you could 
>substitute one for the other gets a uuencoded dump of /usr/spool/news 
>delivered to their mailbox once per day ... ;^) 
 
I guess I'm glad the mail system on this machine is weird.  It'll crash the 
Athena mail server, not the CPU.  I just won't be able to get any e-mail. 
<grin> 
   
>Anybody have ridership numbers for the Capitols?  Is there any talk 
>of running CalTrain for (at least) San Jose -> Richmond anytime soon? 
 
Wouldn't running a CalTrain to Richmond be a bureaucratic nightmare of 
the first order?  JPB being a San Francisco-San Mateo-Santa Clara 
county thing, and all that.
 
  =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