I'm on Facebook

Here's my page.

I'll happily add any fellow transit/bike enthusiast as a friend!

Beware Post-Election Announcements

Did Santa Clara County voters know that a vote for Measure B was a vote against all transit improvements in the South Bay (CalTrain electrification, light rail extensions, even BRT) except BART?

Probably, not considering that Yes-on-B/SVLG explicitly said it was not. Yet this is what the VTA says B's (apparent) passage means (now that it can safely say so, after the election).

In other news, the CAHSR's Quentin Kopp now (again, safely post-election) thinks it'd be ok to build an HSR terminal at 4th & King, and skip the (joint HSR/CalTrain) tunnel to downtown SF. Can I have my vote back? Getting the downtown extension built was one my main reasons for supporting this thing.

Should I have paid more attention to my own doubts about this project?

Doesn't ending HSR a half-hour bus ride away from downtown SF kind of undermine the benefits of getting there from LA in two and a half hours?

It's ironic that the public was much better served when transit was in the hands of people openly motivated by avarice, like "Borax" Smith, Henry Huntington, and E. H. Harriman (as a historical side-note: CalTrain's bayshore route is part of Harriman's legacy, and if he had lived a few years longer, it might have been electrified and extended to downtown a century ago!), than those of "public servants" like we have today.

Subsidies for Folding Bikes

This is one thing CalTrain could do to address its bike capacity problems and make everybody happy. And if LA Metro can do it--and get a grant from the state to pay for it--why isn't CalTrain jumping on this?

More "trouble on the line" today. I'm turning off twitter updates to my phone until I either get a data plan so I don't have to pay $0.30 per SMS, or at least til I'm actually commuting again.

Toys for Tots Train this Weekend

Check CalTrain's webpage to see when it's coming to a station near you.

Pick up some toys to donate (for cheap but un-crappy toys, I like IKEA--how about a Lillabo?), and bring your little one(s) down to the station to meet Santa!

CalTrain Blows it, Offers Free Rides

I'm sitting comfortably at home watching this on Twitter.

Looks like the new signalling system put in during the CTX rebuild (4 years ago) had a meltdown this morning, disrupting service so badly that CalTrain is offering free rides today and tomorrow (Friday) as an apology.

From CalTrain.Com:

Customer ALERT: The computer problem which caused today’s train delays has been repaired. Train delays are expected to continue through the afternoon, as crews work to restore service. As a gesture of apology, all rides on Caltrain will be free until 1:30 a.m., Dec. 5. In addition, Caltrain tickets will be honored on VTA Routes 22 and 522 (which serve Caltrain stations) and on all SamTrans buses for the remainder of the day.

Update: I overstated this: "As a gesture of apology, all Caltrain rides were free from 1 p.m. to the end of the service day. We regret the delay and will continue to work to provide the service our customers expect."

Lame!