Caltrain: Take a Seat (On the Floor)

April 25, 2016

Here's a great bit from the Mercury News' Mr. Roadshow's column. I have experienced this a few times (not including big event trips like this one):

Q People whining about not getting a seat on BART haven't ridden on Caltrain lately. At least BART gives straps and poles to hang onto and the train rides are pretty smooth. Caltrain is often standing-room-only for an hour or more and passengers have to grab whatever they can find, including other people. The older Caltrain cars are 100 times bumpier than BART. A lot of people sit on the filthy floor because they don't have the strength to stand up for that long.

A Forget wearing a suit. This is scruffy blue jeans territory.

Of course, spending billions of dollars in the Central Valley on High-cost Rail makes total sense, right?

Posted in High Speed Rail, SamTrans-Caltrain

4 responses to “Caltrain: Take a Seat (On the Floor)”

hillsider

April 25, 2016

I get how hard it is to run a railroad in bad times but why do they struggle so much in good times? Is it really that hard to add a train or two or a car or two? Aren’t these honchos making a quarter mil a year?
caltrain sufferer

April 26, 2016

The problem is funding. There’s no dedicated funding for Caltrain, so money is always tight. In this day and age Caltrain has not enough seats/capacity, no WiFi on board, and too limited a schedule.
In the meantime, we as a society have decided to spend our transportation resources on high speed rail and, frankly, too many highways.
Mom

April 26, 2016

The society got fooled by high speed rail and woke up too late to do anything about it.
another sufferer

April 28, 2016

+ 1/2 and – 1/2 to another sufferer. I too suffer but we are not spending too much on highways. Kill high-speed rail and spend it on Caltrain and roads.

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