Crude but Effective

And that's fine...

... but how many years of nagging to it take to get CalTrain to just take the simple measure of putting these signs on their trains?

A Side Benefit of the Bike Commute

With just five hours of sleep, because I was up til 1 generating speech recognition accuracy reports (and massaging the data to keep the numbers up--can't stop now or it'll look like we're getting worse), and up at 6 to take my kid to Chorus (which it turned out didn't have a rehearsal this morning, so we went to Peets

for a latte, hot chocolate, and coffee cake), it's nice to know that, whereas if I were driving I'd be seriously in danger of getting in a wreck because I fell asleep at the wheel, you really can't fall asleep while riding a bike!

Flight Pattern Map--How About a Commute Pattern Map?

This diagram, a visualization all the aircraft flights over the US in one day, is pretty cool.

Now image if you could analagously see the the daily travel patterns of all the people in a metro region, like the Bay Area.

The data would be harder to get. I bet cell phone providers have it, though.

It would be a huge help in planning future transit lines. Do we really know where everyone is trying to get to and from?

12:29 1:29 2:39 and 3:26 WTF?

Yeah, that's when northbound trains leave Mountain View. I thought I knew the pattern and missed the 3:29 3:26. Why does CalTrain's schedule have to be so complicated?

While I was waiting for the 4:03 I took this picture of poppies growing by the VTA tracks.

Bought a House

We've been wanting to for a long time, and have recently had the new incentive that we're just not going to fit in our current rental now. But what finally got us to jump is, first of all, things (finally) getting a bit more affordable, but also our recent discovery of Redwood City's "alphabet neighborhood", which has an unusual combination of suburban niceness, (relative) affordability, and convenient access to transit. It's a pretty quick bike ride, and a quite doable walk to Sequoia Station, and unlike a lot of ostensibly much posher parts of RWC, you (or your kids) don't have to go through any sketchy areas to get there.

We haven't yet adopted the free-range kids philosophy, but this location will make us feel comfortable turning our daughter (and eventually, son) loose on the world a little sooner than a lot of others would, and put interesting things to do within reach... She already knows how to get to Great America, after all.

Transit-Accessible Florists

In Mountain View I recommend Floratique, across from CalTrain,

both for the flowers and some darn tasty chocolate!

How does our State want to Spend it's Stimulus Money?

According to a Friends of The Earth report (they advocate spending it on transit first, and of what is spent on roads, emphasizing repairs over new construction), we're not the best (Massachusetts) but not the stupidest (Florida--who'd a thunk!) either:

CALIFORNIA

The California DOTs request, while not as ideal as Massachusetts, shows that Californias government is thinking about investing smartly. Californias DOT wants 60 percent of stimulus transportation funding to go to roads, and only around 37 percent for public transportation. However, Californias roads and bridges are in great need of repair, and it is encouraging that Californias DOT request allocated nearly 70 percent of the funding for roads towards repair. Already, 13 percent of Californias bridges are considered to be structurally deficient and 18 percent of the states roads are in poor condition; these figures are among the highest of the 19 states analyzed. Californias transportation sector causes the largest percentage of global warming pollution out of all states, with 58 percent of global warming pollution in the state resulting from transportation. To combat this, further investment in public transportation should be considered, even though 10 percent of Californians already use alternative transportation modes in their daily commutes.

Now would be a good time, of course, to make noise and get these ratios improved (or at least, apply enough pressure to keep that 37% from mysteriously shrinking).

I Will Write Anna Eshoo Today

Time is running out if you want to tell your congressperson to fight to get transit operating funds (present in original draft, since dropped in the usual wheeling and dealing) back into the economic stimulus package.

If you have forgotten who represents you, go to http://www.house.gov and type in your zipcode (you may need your +4 extension, but if so but they link to a USPS page that will look that up for you based on your street address.

Driving Sux

It was raining, and I had a meeting I didn't want to show up wet for, so I decided to drive to the station.

I figured that if I can get down there in 15 mins by bike, I should be able to drive it in 15 mins, too, right? But I didnt' consider:

• Having to slow down for road construction, instead of scooting by with a wave onthe shoulder.
• Having to wait for a green light to turn right because some bozo got in the turn lane and decided to go straight.
• Having to wait through two cycles to turn left, because traffic was backed up to far to get into the left turn lane.
• Having to find a parking place.
• Paying for parking.
• Realizing that the parking ticket machine is not next to the sign saying "pay for parking".

I made the train but the last point was the last straw, and all I could do was watch it stop and get going again.

I can't believe people put up with this crap every day.

Next time I'm packing a change of clothes and I'm just going to get wet riding my bike and not mind.

Nathan's Favorite Song

Santa Clara Station Improvements Funded

The VTA is kicking down some $$ to pay for improvements to Santa Clara station.

This will provide separate outside platforms for NB and SB trains, and a tunnel to connect them, so that passengers will no longer have to cross active tracks to reach NB trains.

This should allow ACE and Capitol Corridor trains to make stops at Santa Clara, which they current pass by.

This project was long held up by the belief that it could be rolled into the construction of the Santa Clara BART station, but fortunately enough reality seems to have set in to get this small project rolling now, rather than waiting another decade or two.

Ideally, the new tunnel could provide a way to get between the station and the area to the NE of the tracks, which currently can only be done by taking a roundabout, mile-or-so-long walk to use an overpass, or trespassing (which CalTrain strenuously insists you should never do, but not to the extent of putting up a fence).

If they provided access to that side, the VTA's #10 Airport Shuttle bus could loop over there instead of at the front of the station, and probably save about 10 minutes each way, too.

Here's a Google Maps Satellite view of the area, if you're curious.

Good Thing I Tagged my Bike!

Twins!

Commuting Again

Parental leave is all used up, and I'm back on the job.

I jumped back on the saddle and got back into the train/bike commute on the first day... and it started to rain.

It was a chilly morning in Mountain View but the Cafe Maison guys were out as usual.

I noticed CalTrain has a new schedule--printed in black and white only--budgets must be tight!

The SF Bike Coalition Bikes-on-Board campaign had distributed flyers on trains pointing out the economic advantages of bike/train commuting--pointing out that the subsidy for a commuter taking a bike on CalTrain, and theoretically taking up the equivalent of two seats, is still lower than what it costs to subsidize station parking places, or commuter shuttle busses from station to workplace. Cool!

Meanwhile, my employer, Microsoft, has started offering CalTrain Go Passes to all Bay Area employees--I now have a shiny "GO" sticker on my ID card that lets me ride anywhere, anytime. Awesome!

And just so you know, my new son Nathan is showing an interest in trains, large and small.

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!

Taking a Break

Not much to say here at the moment, since I'm:

• Not commuting while I'm on leave.
• Too happy to rant about anything!

Yes on Q (SMART), No on B (SJ BART)

These two projects make quite a contrast.

SMART is cost-effective, conventional rail technology, a project with a solid financial plan, and honest ridership projections. Perhaps too honest, since the upfront description of what the project can and can't do has given fodder to adversaries.

With SMART the north bay has a chance to channel their future growth into some something tolerable, and turn exurbia into something other than a nightmare of long-distance car commuting.

And besides this, their is the fact that SMART will enable my family to conveniently reach Snoopy's Home Ice in Santa Rose via transit.

The BART-to-SJ project is ridiculously expensive (a 16-mile subway through the suburbs, dug underneath an existing railway right-of-way?), claims laughably high ridership estimates, and is so fiscally reckless as to endanger every other transit project in the south bay. Yet it's popular with Silicon Valleyites who are wowed by technology but have no understanding or real interest in using public transit.

Vote this turkey down and force the VTA to get their financial house in order, and connect the South Bay to the East Bay with something that's affordable and will actually work.