Caltrain is a part of the worst public transportation network of any large city in the US. It costs almost $8 to ride from MV to SF, a comparable ride in Chicago, New York, and DC costs about $4. The cost of the drive from MV to SF is about $6, assuming a rather inefficient 20 mpg car.

The system of paying for tickets at the machines on the platform is incredibly inefficient. Plan to get to the train at least 15 minutes early to fight through the swarm of people trying to buy tickets. In other cities, you can buy a ticket on the train for $1 extra. If you can't buy a ticket in time, don't even think about getting on the train, you will get a citation. Just wait another hour for the next train.

There is no communication between Caltrain, BART, or VTA. Try taking Caltrain/BART from MV to the SFO airport. I've encountered better transportation in third-world countries. The trip takes about 2.5 hours if you get lucky with the connections, but there is no guarantee. The same car trip takes about 30 minutes. You can't buy your BART ticket from MV, so just hope that there isn't a long line in Milbrae and that the BART train isn't just about to take off.

Want to go to downtown SF? Take Caltrain to 4th and King, from there try to figure out the maze of Muni, buses, and BART in SF. Again, you can't buy your tickets in MV. And all the local transit adds onto that $8 cost. Now you're talking $12+ to get to SF. Car is still $6. Trains in Chicago, New York, and DC take you to the center of the city.

For such a smugly progressive and green metro area, SF has one of the worst public transportation systems in the country.

When it is more expensive and time-consuming than driving, why should people support this antiquated system?

Some corrections to "MV Resident"'s post...

"It costs almost $8 to ride from MV to SF"
The cost for 3 zones one-way is $6.50. It's $5.53 per ride on a 8 ride ticket.

"a comparable ride in Chicago, New York, and DC costs about $4"
MV->SF is approximately 40 miles. A similar distance on Chicago's Metra (Ogilvie Transportation Center Station to Zion Station -- 40 miles) costs exactly as much as Caltrain does for the same distance...$6.50.

"The cost of the drive from MV to SF is about $6, assuming a rather inefficient 20 mpg car."
This does not include the cost of parking, wear and tear, opportunity cost (cannot multitask while driving), insurance (some insurance rates are based on how many miles you drive each year), and many other things.

"The system of paying for tickets at the machines on the platform is incredibly inefficient. Plan to get to the train at least 15 minutes early to fight through the swarm of people trying to buy tickets."
Get a Clipper Card. You can get one for free if you order it online and set up Autoload from a credit card.
Also, in my experience, conductors are fairly patient when the train arrives and there is a line at the ticket machine. They will usually wait for the people already in line to finish buying tickets, or simply permit them to board the train without paying if the lines are excessive.

"In other cities, you can buy a ticket on the train for $1 extra."
Caltrain stopped doing this because it significantly increased their labor costs. Proof-of-Payment requires fewer conductors per train.

"Just wait another hour for the next train."
This is only a problem outside of commute hours, and it's basically due to budget cuts that Caltrain has no control over.

"The trip takes about 2.5 hours if you get lucky with the connections, but there is no guarantee. The same car trip takes about 30 minutes."
Caltrain gets you within about a mile of the airport in about half an hour (if you catch a Baby Bullet). I agree that BART's airport connection is very inefficient.

"You can't buy your BART ticket from MV, so just hope that there isn't a long line in Milbrae and that the BART train isn't just about to take off."
Another great reason to get a free Clipper card.

"Want to go to downtown SF? Take Caltrain to 4th and King, from there try to figure out the maze of Muni, buses, and BART in SF."
There is a Muni Metro train platform right across the street from Caltrain. Go there and get on the next outbound train.

"And all the local transit adds onto that $8 cost. Now you're talking $12+ to get to SF."
$6.50 Caltrain + $2 MUNI = $8.50.

"Car is still $6."
Wait, there's a place to park for FREE on Market Street? Do tell!

"Trains in Chicago, New York, and DC take you to the center of the city."
There are already 2 trains that go to downtown SF that you can connect to from Caltrain: BART and MUNI. The California High Speed Rail project will build tunnels shared with Caltrain to the downtown Transbay Terminal...that will give you 3 options, and the single-seat ride that you seem to want.

A wild thought to get some conversation started:

What would it take to replace the Cal Train equipment with BART trains?? I suppose first off that both San Mateo and Santa Clara county would have to vote to become part of BART. After that, what would have to be done with the tracks to convert them for BART use. If they are not the proper width, then this thought might just crash and burn before it is launched. Of course, if the HSR is going to be coming through with all its construction, what would it take to fold a BART conversion into that process??

Yah -- I know. Dream on. Let's bounce this around to see if we can go anywhere with it.

Cheers
Jim Doughty

Thanks David Bloom, but in reality, we could all tell MV resident really just wanted an excuse to bash the "smugly progressive" SF Metro area. Just another divider hell bend on an "us vs them" attitude. I wanna give him a biiig hug :)

MV Resident,

Along with all the points that David made, shouldn't we upgrade the system so it's more convenient to use? Electrification will make that happen, along with more frequent service. I can't wait for the opportunity to give Caltrain a dedicated source of operating funds.

Also like David said, the Clipper card, while not perfect, eliminates most of the ticket paying concerns that you have. You just touch the card to a sensor on the platform to pay your fare, and do it again at Millbrae if you transfer to BART.

Again, Caltrain has done much with very little. If we want better service, we have to pay for it.

I would like to see people drive instead of taking Caltrain. I would improve car sales and the economy.

Without seeing the budget, I imagine we could make up most of that deficit buy cutting pensions and salary by 5% a year for 3 years for all employees. We should do the same thing to all Public sector employees, including teachers and city councilmembers.

First of all, hypothetically speaking, an average individual or a private company can't afford to operate beyond what they make. How did this agency afford to create $30M deficit? They may operate under < 7% in salary cost. But there is something else that is wrong with them or the salary cost is understated since we are not seeing all the details or the benefit cost is moved to some other item. Is Caltrain paying out too much in pension payouts? Apparently , there is not enough in the article to see why they are running such a huge deficit of $30M and secondly the existing ticket costs are very high. They need to bring it down to increase the volume or do a weekend promotion to get more riders.

Jupiterk,

Caltrain contracts with Amtrak for their operations, so labor is a large portion of the budget besides the 6% of the budget that is devoted to administration costs. However, the article does state where the $30 million hole is coming from:

"The projected $30 million gap is contingent on the other two transit agencies making cutbacks similar to the SamTrans reduction, which reduced its annual contribution by $10 million, to $4.7 million, Simon said."

Essentially, SamTrans, VTA, and SFMTA fund Caltrain from their budgets, and SamTrans is planning on reducing their contribution to CalTrain by $10 million. So, Caltrain gets the $30 million number because they assume VTA and SFMTA will reduce their contributions by similar amounts.

I live in San Francisco; I have also lived in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Paris. I first came to SF in 1986 I lived in Fremont and tried to take mass transit to work at Oakland Airport. It was world class unreliable. Since then I have moved several times and ended up in San Francisco. Not much has changed. You can comfort yourselves with denial about your “system” but the fact is it’s terrible. Not quite as bad as bus service in Bangladesh but certainly not on par with the places you like to compare it too. In fact my recent experience in Los Angeles was better. The Muni Metro is over budget and often doesn’t serve half the city. They collect the full fare and drop you off with no bus or alternative. I have been on Muni Buses and Metro Trains when the driver has just decided to stop and go into convenience stores and liquor stores for snacks, leaving passengers for 5-10 minutes in an unattended vehicle. This happened while showing friends from out of town the city. When we called we were told they would have the “union” look into it. The drivers drag children for god sake. When I worked in Oakland one of the women I worked with befriended her bus driver –he let her drive, quaint but hardly world class. You complain about being underfunded as if tax payers in New York and Chicago should spend their dollars to support an artificially low fare. Why? Because if the fare reflected the actual rider ship and ridiculous administrative costs it would be too high to maintain the feeble ridership you do have. Yet you want a High Speed Rail when you can’t manage one that averages maybe 30 mph. With regard to the extra 15 minutes –you may have time to burn none of the people I work with do. As a customer I shouldn’t be paying my fare just to keep a few people employed, I should be paying for a convenient, reasonably comfortable, cost effective, reliable, and safe alternative to other modes of transit. Perhaps you want the thing because it’s environmentally friendly. The fact is there is no such thing, there are only systems that are perhaps less damaging. I love mass transit but it works very poorly here and when you have a bus or train with only 9 people on board its just a fuel guzzling, pollution spewing, beast . The efficiency in mass transit is in the mass of people not the heap of rolling steel. If you don’t have a system that is run sufficiently well to attract and keep them you don’t have mass transit. So why am I here? Not to ride mass transit. Fortunately there are other things in the area to do and enjoy and most of them don’t require CalTrain or suffering delusional people for too long. By the way you can ride from Union Station to Elgin for $6 or $4.8 with a 10 ride ticket and the trains actually run.

Re: Red...

"I have been on Muni Buses and Metro Trains when the driver has just decided to stop and go into convenience stores and liquor stores for snacks, leaving passengers for 5-10 minutes in an unattended vehicle."
It's not just you and me...bus drivers have to pee, too!

"You complain about being underfunded as if tax payers in New York and Chicago should spend their dollars to support an artificially low fare. Why? Because if the fare reflected the actual rider ship and ridiculous administrative costs it would be too high to maintain the feeble ridership you do have."
If you exclude the Gilroy extension (only 3 roundtrips every weekday), Caltrain has more riders per route mile than any other commuter rail system in the country -- more than Metro-North, more than LIRR, more than Metra.
Web Link
Another important indication of this is the farebox recovery ratio. Caltrain's 40% ratio is better than those of Metro-North (~36%) and LIRR (26.6%). It is lower than Metra's (55%, which is very impressive for a commuter rail system in the USA).

"Yet you want a High Speed Rail when you can’t manage one that averages maybe 30 mph."
Caltrain Baby Bullets average about 45-50mph. BART is the second fastest heavy rail system in the United States (Web Link )

"By the way you can ride from Union Station to Elgin for $6 or $4.8 with a 10 ride ticket and the trains actually run."
Wow, 1 hour 12 minutes for 40 miles (during commute time, in commute direction!). Caltrain can do that distance in 45 minutes.

---

Look, I agree that public transit here sucks overall. But I think that if you give it funding, and allocate it wisely, it can get a lot better. Agencies like Caltrain have demonstrated that they can significantly increase ridership and revenue with some small, targeted capital investments.

It's ironic to see the grossly misnamed Silicon Valley "Leadership" Group involved in the effort to save Caltrain. For the past decade or so, this loathsome bunch has been advocating extending BART to San Jose at the expense of just about every other transportation improvement in the south bay. The 2000 Measure A sales tax increase ballot language listed 14 specific projects or project areas which included:

Improving Caltrain by double-tracking to Gilroy and electrifying from Palo Alto to Gilroy.

Increasing the level of Caltrain service.

and connecting Caltrain with the Dumbarton Rail line.

Sadly, these and other promised projects have been sacrificed at the alter of BART, and this group hornswaggled voters into passing yet another BART tax in 2008. (some folks never learn.) Now this group wants YET ANOTHER TAX to bail out Caltrain.

Santa Clara County residents already pay enough in transit tax, most of which goes into one gold-plated, over-designed project that uses the wrong route. The last thing we need in this lousy economy is more taxes.

I had family visiting during the holidays and the took Caltrain up to SF and they thought it was a great experience and a great deal. They were sad to hear about impending cuts.

I will say I've ridden on weekdays and weekends all the way to SF from Menlo Park and never been asked for my ticket. I think that has a lot to do with the revenue stream.

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