TrainBlog by Marcel Marchon

Governor Schwarzenegger announced his budget proposal for fiscal year 2007-08 last week. Unfortunately, his proposal envisages to take money that is supposed to go towards public transportation funding and use that for school buses. I think this is a move in the wrong direction. Late last year, California voters approved a large bond measure that are supposed to pay for investments in California’s transportation infrastructure, yet here is the Governor taking money away from the fund that is supposed to cover the operating costs of that infrastructure. Isn’t that kind of contrary to what the voters asked for?

The biggest savings, $627 million, comes from using extra money in the state’s public transit account instead of money from the general fund to pay for busing students to school. The account has seen a windfall of tax revenue from higher gas and diesel prices.

But some argue that taking money away from public transit is going in the wrong direction.

“It’s ironic that in the same 24 hours the governor is being applauded for his commitment to reducing emissions caused by driving, he’s cutting public transportation,” said Carli Paine, transportation program director for the Transportation and Land Use Coalition.

[Quoted from Schwarzenegger’s balancing act of spending and cuts ]

San Francisco’s Third Street Light Rail Line - to be known as the ‘T’ line - opened for limited (free!) weekend service today. Regular all-week service will commence on April 7 of this year.

Service begins at 10 a.m. and continues until 7 p.m. For the first three months, the T-Third will operate only on weekends between 10 a.m. and 7 p.m. Anyone who boards a train south of Fourth and King streets can ride the line for free until April 7, when full service is scheduled to start.

[Quoted from SAN FRANCISCO / Muni’s Third St. light-rail line finally rolling ]

The Third Street Light Rail Line runs southwards on Third Street from the current terminus at Fourth and Kind Streets (next to the Caltrain station) and terminates near the Bayshore Caltrain station. (at Bayshore Blvs. and Sunnydale Ave.) I think, originally there was supposed to be a station right next to the Caltrain station, but for some reason, this was not implemented.

The T line will continue northwards along the Embarcadero trackage and into the Market Street tunnel to its northern terminus at Castro station.

Effective April 7, 2007, the N-Judah line will stop serving the 4th & King station and now terminate at Embarcadero station. The J-Church line will provide peak hour only service to 4th & King.

Well, there must be other ways to finance this thing than always just by borrowing money, no? Almost everybody all around the world believes that High Speed Rail is infrastructure that is worth investing in - but in the car-centric United States, do people (or maybe I should say “the politicians”) still only believe in the “drive-and-fly”-mentality?

Sayonara High Speed Rail?

In a pre-speech briefing with reporters, the Schwarzenegger administration said that Schwarzenegger’s bond proposal would essentially max out the state’s borrowing capacity for the next decade. So what about the idea of a ballot measure asking voters to approve bonds to build a high speed rail system through the Central Valley? After all, it was supposed to have been on the ballot already, but kept getting postponed. Administration officials said today that the high-speed rail project should be derailed… again, and perhaps indefinitely.

Quoted from Capital Notes- From KQED’s John Myers: State… of the State of the State

Even though I had written about it earlier last year, I completely missed it when Caltrain released their “Project 2025” report, outlining a plan for the next 20 years. I haven’t read it yet, just a quick peek, but I think all their scenarios for the future include electrification and the acquisition of new modern equipment.

caltrain.com - Project 2025

Project 2025 provides a comprehensive road map of what the agency must do to continue to be a vital commuter rail system throughout the 21st century.

Download: Report (PDF, 226 KB)

The other day, there was an opinion piece in the Fresno Bee, where Russ Minick remembers having taken a trip to Japan 30 years ago and took his first ride on a “Bullet Train”. And ever since, he’s been wondering whether California will ever get High Speed Rail …

There always seems to be a more urgent need. And I begin to wonder whether our elected leaders will ever find the wisdom and the courage to get high-speed rail done.

I read the other day that the last of the generation of locomotives and cars that I rode in Japan have been retired from service. Some of them have been in museums for a decade.

Meanwhile, in the so-called Golden State, we wait. And wait. And wait. And we call that leadership.

[FresnoBee.com: Other Opinion: RUSS MINICK: Will state ever get high-speed rail? ]

On November 5, 2006 (a Sunday), Capitol Corridor trains #727 (southbound Oakland - San Jose) and #734 (northbound, San Jose - Oakland) will be making exceptional stops at Niles. This has been arranged by the Train Riders Association of California with the help of Capitol Corridor, Amtrak and Union Pacific. The reason for the stop is a special excursion organized by the group following their Annual Meeting and Conference at Oakland on November 4. In between the trains, the Niles Canyon Railway will operate a train up to Sunol and back. Both the extra Capitol Corridor stop and the Niles Canyon Railway trains are available to the public.

Approximate schedules:
- Arrival of train #727 at Niles: 10:00am
- Departure of Niles Canyon Railway excursion: 11:25am
- Departure of train #734 at Niles: 1:25pm

Riding the Capitol Corridor trains requires a ticket to/from Fremont, the next scheduled regular station on the route. The fares for the Niles Canyon exursion is $10.

If this extra stop is successful and enough people participate in the event, this may eventually lead to future additional stops at Niles.