That's one way to decrease the number of daily riders. Even our public transportation is a luxury now.

Well, I guess this did not work out last year!

Web Link

Well, at least the people using the train are paying for the train, not like the sales tax they wanted everyone to pay.

When I took the train to the city, I thought it was expensive back then, since a monthly pass was over ten percent of my paycheck. I parked in the vacant lot across from Evelyn. The returning train was always crowded, so I had to use the smoker cars at the end. They never reached the platform, so you had to step off unto the crushed rock before walking across the bare ground. It was fun, since the doors were always open, so you could jump off before the train actually stopped. We all did it and amazing no one got hurt.

Hey! Don't blame the passengers for the sales tax! It wasn't our idea (Just kidding, I know you meant Caltrain) . I think most passengers would tell Caltrain that if they want to make more money, they should lower prices so it is more competitive with other forms of transportation, and that they should take a look at changing their salary and benefits structure (especially retirement) which generally is what eats up most of the budget for public agencies and services, for any new hires. But that would be too much like Capitalism.

I wonder how much of the increase will go to fund the high speed rail boondoggle?


Jim Neal
Old Mountain View

Has Caltrain done any studies regarding levels of fare evasion? I've ridden the train a number of times, most recently July 29, and not once did a conductor check my ticket. The honor system sounds great in theory but rarely works out. Even BART, with its controlled access gates experiences significant levels of fare evasion - Caltrain, with its open access platforms and limited number of conductors must be rife with freeloaders. Rather than raise the price paid by riders who buy a ticket or use their Clipper card, wouldn't it be better to ensure that every passenger purchases a ticket?

Very few mass transit systems, if any, are funded entirely on fares. They're funded through taxes since they're a public good meant to reduce gridlock traffic and pollution. The issue shouldn't be that Caltrain needs to become more competitive as a business to create more profit, since that's like saying that a fire station should worry about how to optimally make money rather than optimally put out fires. Caltrain should get the funding that it needs so it can best build and maintain the system to get as many cars off the road as possible.

RoxieK in the comment above was, first, misled by the random chance of not encountering the ticket-checking process personally. I use Caltrain just occasionally (a few times a year), but the long-term average has been tickets checked on the train in maybe 50% of rides. It also depends on ride length: short trips have less chance of encountering the checking as the checker moves through the train. But any limited sample of just a few rides is misleading, because of the greater chance of a randomly unrepresentative experience.

Secondly, FYI this method of spot-checking for tickets is tried and true, and financially sound. It's long-established in many other regions and countries. Even if occasional passengers cheat, Caltrain need not catch them all to recover lost fare. Violators are fined, and the fine can be set so that those who are caught pay for those who aren't (and for the cost of catching themselves). As a side effect, they may think twice about doing it again once they've gambled and lost.

The zone system is totally unfair. If your one station commute crosses a zone your fare is double that of a 5 station commute within the same zone!

Rather than raising weekend and evening fares, there should be off peak fares for rides starting after 10.00 am weekdays and at weekends. Caltrain parking rates should be free after 3.00 pm to encourage evening riders.

8 friends attending a weekend Giants game recently carpooled in an SUV and paid $20 parking for one car rather than each paying over $14 for Caltrain. Even with gas, this worked out so much cheaper. Imagine paying for Caltrain fares for a family as well as Giants tickets!

Encouraging more riders at offpeak times by offering discounted off peak fares makes so much sense to me.

I agree with PA Resident, Caltrain should have off-peak incentives to encourage travel on nights and weekends. One problem is that the hourly headways on weekends are not very attractive. BTW, BART's off peak parking policy is much better.

Catching just 2-3 people per hour would offset the salary of someone checking for tickets. I'll bet more than that number would be caught. Heck, do it for a few months and see what happens. Besides, without the "threat" of being checked, evasion increases. (And my experience has been that checking occurs less than 50% of the time, especially on crowded trains.)