SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA: Transit/Transportation News

[Busy Bee]

I suppose the root of my frustration is with the FRA and the ill conceived crash worthiness reg's than with SMART who was forced to reinvent the wheel to get rolling stock that appeased the FRA. That money could have been put towards even better station facilities, electrification or operational budgets.

[northbay]

I won't disagree with you there Busy Bee. I agree wholeheartedly

Fflint, yes. There will be some sections of passing track, but I'm not sure how many. I seem to recall seeing a diagram somewhere, maybe in the EIR but I can't remember.

[Urbana]

What sort of headway are they looking at for SMART?
30 minutes? An hour?

[electricron]

Originally Posted by Urbana

What sort of headway are they looking at for SMART? 30 minutes? An hour?

Both! 30 minutes of so during rush hours, and hour or more at other times.
They'll be hard press to have shorter headways than every 20 minutes on a mostly single track line.

[fflint]

Sacramento initially constructed a single-track light rail system and waited until increasing ridership--and funding--made double-tracking both desirable and feasible. It was a smart way to leverage the early funding and get a railroad up and running--today RT is all double-tracked and carries some 50,000 riders a day. I would imagine SMART will similarly add more and more trackage as the years pass.

[Grantenfuego]

Not sure if this has been discussed here already, but it's news to me. I was looking into the feasibility of a bike path across Yerba Buena and the western span of the Bay Bridge and found these from 2011.

Bay Bridge Bike Lane May Be $550 Million Bike Lane To Nowhere
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/13/bay-bridge-bike-lane_n_1146310.html

And the project study here
http://www.mtc.ca.gov/planning/bay_bridge/west_span_bike_ped/Presentation_12-13-11.pdf

Also the video about the earthquake safety of the new bridge at the bottom of the Huffington Post article is pretty interesting.

[electricron]

Originally Posted by Busy Bee

I suppose the root of my frustration is with the FRA and the ill conceived crash worthiness reg's than with SMART who was forced to reinvent the wheel to get rolling stock that appeased the FRA. That money could have been put towards even better station facilities, electrification or operational budgets.

The FRA compliant Nippon Sharyo DMUs SMART ordered were much cheaper than all other offers, including other FRA compliant from other vendors and non-compliant DMUs from Stadler and Siemens.
The cars specifications call for seating of 78 passengers per car, storage for10 to 12 bicycles, overhead storage, permanent and folding tables, readinglights, Wi-Fi and a bathroom in one car and a snack bar in the other.

Here's the per unit prices the various vendors gave to provide nine specified three-car trains:
Sumitomo Corp. of America / Nippon Sharyo Inc. (FRA compliant) = $82.7 million
CAF USA Inc. of Spain (FRA compliant) = $136.7 million
Stadler Rail AG of Switzerland (Non-FRA compliant) = $124 million
U.S. Railcar of Columbus, Ohio = $131.5 million (FRA compliant).
German manufacturer Siemens submitted two proposals, $104.6 million (Non-FRA compliant) and $121.2 million (FRA compliant).

The Nippon Sharyo offer was 21% cheaper than the next cheapest DMU. SMART eventually saved even more money by ordering less than they listed in the proposal. Never-the-less, to suggest the non-FRA compliant trains would have been cheaper is completely false. Actually, by ordering these they have more money left over to spend on other goodies.

Data source: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BATN/message/46578

[northbay]

Thanks for the clarification electricron

[simms3_redux]

Not sure if this has been mentioned - SF Bay Bridge east span now officially delayed.

http://sfist.com/2013/07/08/bay_bridge_opening_delay_to_be_disc.php

[CityKid]

Modesto Bee covered expansion of ACE into Merced possibly by 2022.

ACE eyes fast track for extending service to Modesto

By J.N. Sbranti — [email protected]

MODESTO — Hop aboard in downtown Modesto, kick back in comfort for two hours and arrive in the Silicon Valley in time for work.

It might not be a high-speed train, but it could be reality in five years. The Altamont Corridor Express — ACE commuter trains — wants to expand service to Modesto, Turlock and Merced.

ACE is trying to fast-track those plans, and it has lined up tax dollars to study its options and prepare the necessary environmental reports. A meeting to explain the proposal and hear concerns will be held July 24 in Modesto.


LORI MCADAM — Bee Graphic

...

It seems to me that there would be greater ridership potential if ACE actually went straight to San Francisco (possibly via the Dumbarton Bridge), but financing and political will withstanding, I don't know how feasible it would be to do that.

[fflint]

KTVU-2 reported on today's News at Noon that AC Transit's average ridership is up 6% year-over-year; the agency now carries a weekday average of 182,000 riders.

[fflint]

Two items of interest:

*Caltrain carried a record average of 53,000 riders per weekday in June

*A new PPIC poll covered in the Chronicle shows 56 percent of Bay Area workers drive alone to work, with 16 percent of the workforce using public transit to get their jobs....14 percent reported commuting by carpool and 5 percent by bike. The number of solo car commuters in the area declined significantly, from 69 percent a decade ago. "The long-term trend is one of decline," said Baldassare. "People are doing less driving."

[sammyg]

Originally Posted by CityKid

Modesto Bee covered expansion of ACE into Merced possibly by 2022.



It seems to me that there would be greater ridership potential if ACE actually went straight to San Francisco (possibly via the Dumbarton Bridge), but financing and political will withstanding, I don't know how feasible it would be to do that.

Is there a way to get ACE trains to Oakland? It's a short ferry to SF from the Jack London Square station.

[electricron]

Originally Posted by sammyg

Is there a way to get ACE trains to Oakland? It's a short ferry to SF from the Jack London Square station.

Why, you have options today?
1) Take the ACE train all the way to San Jose, then take Caltrain all the way to San Francisco.
2) Take the ACE train all the way to Stockton, then take Amtrak's San Joaquin all the way to Oakland where you can take your ferry to San Francisco.

The purpose of the ACE trains was to connect San Jose to Stockton by train, not Oakland to Stockton.

[sammyg]

Originally Posted by electricron

Why, you have options today?
1) Take the ACE train all the way to San Jose, then take Caltrain all the way to San Francisco.
2) Take the ACE train all the way to Stockton, then take Amtrak's San Joaquin all the way to Oakland where you can take your ferry to San Francisco.

The purpose of the ACE trains was to connect San Jose to Stockton by train, not Oakland to Stockton.

I was proposing it as an alternative to traveling to San Francisco, not San Jose. Why must ACE stay connected to San Jose, and not the rest of the Bay?

[Eightball]

Originally Posted by fflint

*Caltrain carried a record average of 53,000 riders per weekday in June

Impressive! Electrification can't come soon enough! Have they added additional trains beyond the two added on the bookends last year? I imagine the trains must be quite crowded.

[electricron]

Originally Posted by sammyg

I was proposing it as an alternative to traveling to San Francisco, not San Jose. Why must ACE stay connected to San Jose, and not the rest of the Bay?

And both of my alternate solutions you can take today eventually get you to San Francisco.

[CityKid]

Originally Posted by sammyg

Is there a way to get ACE trains to Oakland? It's a short ferry to SF from the Jack London Square station.

I had never considered that, and thought it was an interesting idea. I presume it's possible, but there are probably track limitations to adding another train to the schedule. I'm not sure if the ROW is also shared with freight of it's exclusively AMTRAK, but I'd assume it was shared with something else.

I also was interested in seeing whether it was possible to take an ACE train and quickly transfer to a Capitol Corridor train. I looked up the ACE and the Capitol Corridor schedules and the westbound ACE 3 arrives at Fremont at 7:10am and the eastbound Capitol Corridor 524 leaves at 7:11am. So, assuming the trains keep a reliable schedule, you could transfer from an ACE train to a Capitol Corridor train. It leaves little breathing room, though, for people who have somewhere to be, especially when you consider the next Capitol Corridor train leaves at 9:38am. Similarly, the eastbound Capitol Corridor 542 train arrives in Fremont at 4:51pm and the ACE leaves at 5:05pm. That would give you a little more leeway if trains were running off schedule. So, in theory, there is one round trip connection each day. I don't think it would be reliable enough for someone to commute on every day on time, but anything is possible. Also, instead of transferring at Jack London Square, they could transfer to BART at the Oakland Coliseum.

[viewguysf]

Originally Posted by CityKid

I had never considered that, and thought it was an interesting idea. I presume it's possible, but there are probably track limitations to adding another train to the schedule. I'm not sure if the ROW is also shared with freight of it's exclusively AMTRAK, but I'd assume it was shared with something else.

I also was interested in seeing whether it was possible to take an ACE train and quickly transfer to a Capitol Corridor train. I looked up the ACE and the Capitol Corridor schedules and the westbound ACE 3 arrives at Fremont at 7:10am and the eastbound Capitol Corridor 524 leaves at 7:11am. So, assuming the trains keep a reliable schedule, you could transfer from an ACE train to a Capitol Corridor train. It leaves little breathing room, though, for people who have somewhere to be, especially when you consider the next Capitol Corridor train leaves at 9:38am. Similarly, the eastbound Capitol Corridor 542 train arrives in Fremont at 4:51pm and the ACE leaves at 5:05pm. That would give you a little more leeway if trains were running off schedule. So, in theory, there is one round trip connection each day. I don't think it would be reliable enough for someone to commute on every day on time, but anything is possible. Also, instead of transferring at Jack London Square, they could transfer to BART at the Oakland Coliseum.

From hearing daily traffic reports, it seems certain that the ACE trains are unreliable to run on schedule and are very often late.

[northbay]

And this is the main reason why the Bay Area's system of broken up transit districts is a poor one - a lack of coordination and cooperation.