Caltrain Reeks of Mismanagement

Dealing with the never-ending travails of Caltrain and its ambiguous relationship with High-Speed Rail is a task I take on with some reluctance because mostly it's a distraction from the mega-billion dollar high-speed rail project. 

But, when the two are now becoming an over-lapping crisis, attention must be paid.  In order to separate the tangled threads, let's look at Caltrain without HSR as an issue.

Throwing more tax dollars at Caltrain solves nothing.  The "Caltrain problem" is not the same thing as "Caltrain's problem."  Caltrain wants us to believe that electrification and additional financial relief for their structural deficit will solve the crisis.  Sorry. The problem is much larger and more complicated than that.

Caltrain needs to pay far more attention to the first and last mile.  Getting to and from the train station, from home and work, is critical to Caltrain's ridership.  It's not about the train ride; it's about getting from your front door to your office door.

Caltrain does not need electrification. That's merely posturing. Regardless of what they say, it will not solve their operating deficit problem. Furthermore, it reflects the misconception Caltrain sustains in its business model.  

Caltrain erroneously believes it is in the railroad business. They are convinced that adding more bells and whistles to their trains, such as electrification, etc. will give them fancier, more up-to-date trains, and thereby turn all their problems around.  However, those will not address the key problem of ridership and commuter rail access. What Caltrain fails to grasp is that they are actually in the public mass transit commuter business, regardless of the technology, which is merely the Means, not the End.  Their mission is a public utility service dedicated to moving the most people possible.  

Caltrain is confused about their business plan.  They confuse their role of being in the railroad business as if the trains are their 'raison d'etre'; their reason for being.  It is not. Their business plan should be based on their purpose, which is to move people around on demand.  That's what justifies their existence.  And they could and should be much better at it.

Caltrain should be an integrated element of a Bay Area wide commuter transit service. It currently operates as a stand-alone transit operator. It is now only an unintegrated component of the Bay Area public transit service that fails to be a fully coordinated network. For example, Caltrain competes with, rather than being tightly connected and integrated with, BART. In fact, they should be closely coupled, with the Peninsula rail route completing BART's round the Bay service. No need to share technologies; just connecting train stations. 

Caltrain has not solved the first and last mile problem for its customers.  One small step in that direction, for example, is being highly receptive to bike riders and their bikes; not hostile.  That change is taking place and is to be commended. In addition, every train station needs adequate parking. Those who persist in thinking that driving, or that Caltrain use is an either/or proposition, don't grasp the realities of how most people commute. All transit is multi-modal and mostly includes cars. Caltrain should facilitate rather than fight that.

Caltrain should be working like crazy to connect all of its train stations, converting them to multi-modal "transit stations," where other modalities like buses and shuttles bring train riders to and from their origination point. A little of that is taking place now, but haphazardly, rather than as a center-piece of their service responsibility.  What Caltrain fails to do is integrate itself into a much larger arterial network of multi-modal transit that spreads, like a web, all over the Bay Area.  

Caltrain reeks of mismanagement and should, as an ambiguously multi-layered organization, be terminated.  But there must be a Peninsula Commuter Rail component closely coupled with the Bay Area transit network.  And that's where all the current discussions fail.  They don't address the problem at its source, which is Bay Area wide. 

All the so-called "Friends of Caltrain" want to do is to put Caltrain on a tax-based IV drip so that it can continue in its catatonic state of suspended animation. That's no solution to either its structural operating fund deficiencies, or its capital improvement upgrades. Electrification, which the 'Friends' are also eager to provide, sounds so progressive and innovative, but the substantive upgrades are less a hardware problem than a systems integration problem. 

Indeed, instead of expensive electrification for the Peninsula corridor, DEMUs can solve the rolling stock upgrades at far lower costs and can be gradually integrated in more cost-effective ways. We've discussed this previously in the blog titled High Speed Train Talk. DEMUs are Diesel/Electric self-operating rail cars that can run by themselves or in train-sets of any length.  (No locomotive needed.) They require no external power source and are extremely fuel-efficient.  For more information, see: Wikipedia.

The fallacy in the reasoning about Caltrain's salvation is that there is too much focus on capital development investment (buying and building stuff), and not enough on transit systems integration. What the Caltrain organization is unable to do is subordinate itself into a larger, comprehensive transit Bay Area wide network.  It's not a Peninsula problem; it's a Bay Area problem.

So, to summarize:

1. Caltrain is the wrong management organization for the Peninsula Commuter Rail Service (PCRS) and should be terminated.

2. The PCRS should be organizationally integrated with BART and within the Capital Corridor Joint Powers Board (CCJPB).

3. The PCRS does not require electrification or other corridor modifications. It can continue to operate its own rolling stock, not BART's.

4.  The structural deficit will be resolved at the state level, which is the jurisdiction of the CCJPB.

5. DEMUs can operate at any train-set length or alone; are flexible and can support ALL Peninsula transit stations.

6. Public Mass Transit is a Bay Area problem, solved for the entire Bay Area, not the Peninsula alone.

7. It is a multi-modal environment, not rail only.

Finally, Caltrain has an Memomandum Of Understanding with the CHSRA.  They should cancel that.  Instead, they should recognize who their real partners need to be; that is, their customers.  And, that's us on the Peninsula.

Without HSR, the Peninsula Commuter Rail Service, integrated with the other transit operators on the Peninsula and in the Bay Area, can be -- like the Army -- all that they can be.