The Daily Journal article on SamTrans changes has a "just the fact, Ma'am" approach--as it should. A couple points caught my eye
SamTrans’ debt service requirement this year is $24.4 million, with $12.7 million going to pay down the debt related to the BART airport extension.
It operates 48 bus routes in San Mateo County but just four them handle nearly half of the transit agency’s weekday ridership.
SamTrans has a weekday average ridership of about 45,000 a day but 45 percent of the riders travel on just four routes: the 120, 292, 390 and 391.
Those last two are the main routes up and down El Camino through B'game. Keeping it solvent is important especially because
SamTrans only recovers 12 percent of its cost from the fare box and gets most of its support from tax revenue.
That revenue model is where the recurring Caltrain funding issues originate, too.........it's a shame that half the debt is for a BART connection that is so problematic.
I'm a frwquent commuter on Caltrain and I can say that rarely (as in 10% of the time) does a conductor check for tickets. The train has also been attracting many more aggressive young people. Fix those 2 problems and Caltrain will won't be a taxpayer money pit.
Posted by: JF | August 14, 2012 at 07:29 AM
I've seen the same thing with the kids and the infrequent checking.
Posted by: Franklin Dad | August 14, 2012 at 04:02 PM
The DJ is reporting:
Caltrain’s streak of increased ridership has hit 24 straight months now and the numbers for July were the highest ever for the month.
In June, Caltrain broke an all-time ridership record when an average of more than 50,000 riders a day hopped on the local commuter train, the most in its 150-year history.
The numbers were slightly down in July but still high enough to break a monthly ridership record which has also sent farebox revenue soaring.
Compared to last year, total ridership in July climbed 12 percent from 1,166,044 riders to 1,305,970 riders.
The average weekday ridership climbed 10.2 percent in July compared to last year from 44,127 to 48,609, according to a staff report to the Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board that was heard at yesterday’s meeting.
The rest is here: http://www.smdailyjournal.com/article_preview.php?id=1754399&title=Caltrain has best July ever
There's probably a couple things at work here: gas prices, a Giants pennant race and Silicon Valley rebounding with more traffic. Not a great time to bring in the disruption of High-cost Rail to mess it all up.......
Posted by: Joe | September 07, 2012 at 08:13 PM
There's lots of talk about this incident in anti-high-speed-rail circles:
SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO -- Terrified Caltrain passengers who were legally crossing the tracks were forced to jump out of the way of a Baby Bullet to avoid disaster, leaving the commuter line scrambling for answers after one of the train operators tested positive for drug use.
No one was hurt in the Aug. 24 incident, which was disclosed to this newspaper for the first time Friday. Caltrain says the "very serious" near-accident was the first of its kind in the modern history of the popular commuter line and has led to major safety changes and left two engineers on leave.
Posted by: Joe | September 21, 2012 at 12:08 PM
Four trains have been brought back and two new ones added to handle the increased ridership
http://www.smdailyjournal.com/article_preview.php?id=1755703&title=Caltrain adds trains to meet ridership growth
Posted by: Joe | October 02, 2012 at 06:12 PM