[GPSCC-chat] Fw: Urgent next steps to save Caltrain

[Wes Rolley]

On 2/2/2011 6:41 PM, Valerie D. Face wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> The attached message is a request for the public to attend transit meetings and speak in favor of maintaining decent Caltrain service (instead of making drastic service cuts) in the short term while long-term funding solutions are developed.
>
> Note that one of the meetings is the VTA Board meeting TOMORROW -- Thursday, February 3.
I live in Morgan Hill where CalTrain has a station that I Never use as 
it does not take me to any place that I want to go to.  I have lived in 
Tokyo, a city with a great mass transportation system.  I was generally 
able to get from out apartment to any place with (generally) not more 
than 2 changes.

I would love to save the train.  Mass transportation is a necessity in 
combating climate change.  However, I think that mass transportation has 
to go in an new direction if it is to be self sustaining, a direction 
that brings closer ties to private enterprise.

Why was that successful when the combination of VTA, Caltrain, BART. 
SAMTRANS, MUNI, etc. barely making it?  Mostly, I believe, it comes from 
the fact that Tokyo set things up as a system with all of the parts 
supporting the larger whole need.  The best example: SEIBU Corp. owns a 
suburban RR line.  The SEIBU line hooks in to the Tokyo system at a 
station named Ikebukuro.   SEIBU also has a Department Store directly 
connected to the Ikebukuro station.  The other end of the SEIBU line is 
a sports stadium where the SEIBU Lions play baseball  You begin to get 
the picture.  Public transportation was directly connected to private 
enterprise operations.

Many of the suburban trains, just change nomenclature when they come 
into Tokyo.  The closest station to our apartment was on the Hibiya 
Line, but the Hibiya line trains just changed names when they went on 
into the suburban area.  When working at a lab outside of Tokyo, I was 
able to take the Hibiya line subway outbound from Tokyo and only needed 
to change trains if I wanted to catch an express... which I generally did.

Here, they are all different, run as separate fiefdoms and providing 
near absolute zero synergy.  I have no idea how I might use Caltrain and 
then get on ??? public transportation that would deliver me to 
University Art (on Meridian in San Jose, to Kinikuniya Bookstore (on 
Saratoga Ave. near Moorpark) and then on to Stevens Creek in Cupertino.  
However, that is a trip we make by car at least once a month because all 
of these places have goods that we can not buy in Morgan Hill at prices 
that make it worth the drive.

Would more people use CalTrain from Morgan Hill if there were a Safeway 
on the corner?  Would it be easier if all of the CalTrain stations had 
direct VTA connections?