A Silicon Valley Train Gets Stuck

Question: the imbalance between what California contributes vs receivers from the federal government is pretty crazy to me. I'll grant some imbalances are necessary - you will always have richer and poorer areas of the country. But when he gap is as wide as it is, and then it is turned into a tool for punishing CA due to our politics, at what point should CA seek to seriously tackle this? Firstly of course is the very long shot possibility of successon, but I was wondering if there might be something in the tax code that would allow CA to shut off the flow of money to the federal government? Perhaps by implementing some kind of massive tax and dividend scheme (e.g. naively I'm thinking if I'm allowed to deduct state taxes - what stops CA from taxing 100% of my income, so I pay nothing to the federal government, then CA pays me a "dividend" equal to my income minus whatever the real tax rate should be (30% or whatever).

&gt; By any measure, Caltrain is the equivalent of a dated personal computer running Windows 95 way overdue for an upgrade. Rush-hour trains are so crowded that their aisles are filled with passengers. Trains break down frequently and the locomotives belch plumes of black smoke into the air — a sight more in line with the early industrial age than 21st century Silicon Valley.<p>As a frequent commuter, I couldn&#x27;t agree more with this paragraph.

The bay area is a bit of a mess public transportation-wise, and at least for this particular project, the cost seems not all that large in the scheme of things ($1.9B overall, need $647M in federal money). I hesitate to propose this because I fear there might be a flame war, but is there any way we could tax some of the large tech companies very slightly to quickly get enough money to make Caltrain and other public transportation systems modern and sustainable?

They should&#x27;ve started high speed rail in the bookends, since any construction there would have immediate benefits for hundreds of thousands of riders, and instill public confidence in the project. That would&#x27;ve helped Caltrain electrification right there.

&gt;Caltrain plans to use the money to switch to modern electric trains, from old diesel locomotives that are prone to failure.<p>I ride the Caltrain about once a week and I haven&#x27;t encountered a delay due to a locomotive failure. How often does this happen?

This is a real shame. I believe this would have allowed 6trains per hour each way throughout the day, bringing the service closer to real urban rapid transit.<p>It would also have a big impact on journey times as electric trains can accelerate and decelerate a lot quicker than the current diesel ones.<p>Why don&#x27;t they look at variable tolling on 101 (or at least an express toll lane) and divert funds to this project? That would seem like a win win: transit users get upgraded service which would encourage more people to switch and drivers have less traffic to deal with as people move to transit, plus they can pay for a more reliable journey if they are in a rush.

Considering the great job CA has done playing ball with the new administration I&#x27;m not exactly surprised said administration is in no hurry to shovel money in their direction. &#x2F;s

I think the train makes sense. House prices are out of whack and the roads are packed. It will encourage growth in Modesto and the Central Valley which will bring not just commuters but other businesses and ease roadway congestion. The Central Valley communities will improve and it&#x27;ll reduce pressure on rents across the Bay area.

The Bay Area would have its money better spent on electric buses anyway. Has anyone breathed while walking down the road in SF?

&gt; The Transportation Department is withholding $647 million in federal grants for a $1.9 billion project that would modernize and increase the capacity of Caltrain. About 65,000 people use the rail line every day to commute between San Francisco and San Jose<p>OK. Just thinking out loud here. $1.9 billion. 65,000 people per day. That&#x27;s about $30K per person.<p>In other words, you can almost buy a Tesla Model 3 for each person. Yet, that would not deal with congestion. Scratch that idea.<p>Is this a point-to-point route? Are most of those people going from San Jose to San Francisco or are there a ton of stops in the way?<p>Next thought is: How many electric buses could one purchase with that money? At $400K each, 4,750 buses. That&#x27;s a lot of eco-friendly buses!<p>OK, but, how many do we need to move 65,000 people per day? Well, if all 65,000 want to go at once, about 1,625 buses. And that would cost $650 billion, or 1&#x2F;3 of the $1.9 billion set aside for this project.<p>How would 1,625 electric buses, for 1&#x2F;3 the cost, affect the region?<p>Yet, it is probably reasonable to assume we don&#x27;t need to move all 65,000 people at once.<p>In looking around it seems reasonable to assume around 2,000 riders per hour on average. If we go with 10,000 (why not?) we would need 250 buses. Now our equipment cost is down to $100 million.<p>BTW, if we switch to natural gas buses that cost goes down to $62.5 million. Not saying this is the best option, just providing comparative data.<p>I am not going to reach any conclusion here. Just exploring very, very rough numbers quickly. I think this would only work well if the bus riders are &quot;long haul&quot;, meaning they don&#x27;t have to stop at every freeway off-ramp and navigate surface streets to pick-up and drop-off people.<p>One could use check-in&#x2F;out to optimize bus routes. Don&#x27;t stop where nobody wants to get on&#x2F;off.<p>There&#x27;s a lot of space between $100 million and $1.9 billion. That&#x27;s 19 times more taxpayer money spent. Is this sensible? Does it survive mathematical analysis more strict than my quick 10 minute think?<p>On the one side I think I&#x27;d rather spend $100 to even as high as $500 million on an electric powered bus infrastructure. Why? Because this would be a huge shot in the arm for that industry and the consequences could ripple throughout the nation. Bus prices could go down from the current $400K, new technologies could be spurred into existence and electric vehicle adoption across the board (passenger cars) is likely to see gains as well.<p>My numbers could be completely off the mark, I know. That said, on an admittedly very flawed first inspection, I would not be surprised if investing a few hundred million on a next-generation electric bus transport system might be better than dumping 19 times more money on rail.<p>I doubt this approach would make any sense at all in a place like Los Angeles, but this Caltrain case might be unique.<p>I&#x27;d rather invest in the future whenever possible.

One thing that shouldn&#x27;t change is the Caltrain ticketing UI. The interface is simple enough to use, and it responds to user input instantly. I can select the ticket I want with four taps in about a second, where the only slowdown is the actual payment.

Only a small amount of that $647 million was going to Caltrain electrification. It was wrapped in a boondoggle of an omnibus transit spending bill. The real political battle here is to limit Federal spending on CA&#x27;s ill-routed HSR.<p>The Democrats are free to introduce a clean bill with <i>just</i> the Caltrain electrification funds. A clean bill (funding ALL of it, even) would sail through Congress.