Going Off The Track – the Slow Disappearance of Caltrain

Going off the Wrong Track from DE BUG on Vimeo.

Bay Area's train service is operated by Caltrain, which is facing a deficit of $30.3 million, estimated for fiscal year 2012. This crisis could have been avoided, but in our car culture, public transportation is just a second thought.

As the state of California faces a $25 billion budget deficit, many public programs have been cut. The state funding for Caltrain is still uncertain, also depending on contributions from three agencies to balance its budget — City and County of San Francisco, the San Mateo County Transit District and the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority. This year, San Mateo County Transit District could not contribute to Caltrain, due to infrastructure deficit within Samtrans. Assuming that Santa Clara and S.F. County is in the same position of decreasing contributions, Caltrain is declaring a fiscal emergency, which it has been near the brink of for the past ten years. It’s the only Bay Area transit system without a dedicated funding source. So to balance the lagging budget Caltrain had to reduce service and fare's have become higher.

Even though Caltrain could suspend over 50% of its service in order to balance its deficit, it is estimated that a remaining $4.7 million deficit will still result from the cuts, these effective changes would be as follows:

• Reduction of weekday trains from 86 trains to 48. Cutting evening trains and operating commute hours only.

• Suspension of service at up to seven stations. Still undecided but possible suspended stations are Bayshore, South San Francisco, San Bruno, Burlingame, Hayward Park, Belmont, San Antonio, Lawrence, Santa Clara and College Park.

• Suspension of weekend service, and holiday service.

• Suspension of all service south of San Jose Diridon station. These stations are Tamien, Capitol, Blossom Hill, Morgan Hill, San Martin, Gilroy, which already run only six trains – three northbound during the morning and three southbound during commute hours.

• Suspension of special event service, such as Bay to Breakers, sharks and giants games.

• Increase fare by 25 cents.

• Parking fee is under consideration of increasing from $3 per day to $4.

I went to a public hearing that Caltrain held March 3rd, at the Caltrain Administrative Office located at San Carlos, CA in order to listen to comments from the community. But even though the community is speaking up against the initiatives taken by Caltrain, administrators stated they still have very little room to improve its service as long as it doesn't have a dedicated source of funding.

This issue will continue every year until Caltrain adopts a dedicated funding source. From these comments, and public hearings, Caltrain could make some changes to its current proposed service cuts.

Caltrain could face a large decline of riders if the service changes are implemented as they're proposed now, leaving less loyal commuters and creating an even larger deficit.