(I realize 20 seconds early isn't that bad, but still, leaving early by any amount of time is a lot worse than leaving late)
It's not a 40 minute thing, this isn't Caltrain, but it's still annoying.
(I'll let you think on that puzzle.)
The second reason is closer, but not exact. Caltrain has a variety of different types of trains, some stop at all the stops, some stop at only a few. Here's the scenario: there is a fast train then a slow train. Your normal schedule doesn't allow you to get to the station on time to take the fast train, so you normally take the slow train. If both trains are behind schedule, you might be able to make it to the fast train, and since it goes faster you might get to your destination earlier than normal.
The frustrating thing of course, is that even if the trains are severely delayed, they have (or had, depending on whether they go out of business soon) a policy of running the exact schedule for each train as if normal. So even if all the trains are piled up, delayed, they would make local stops, etc. even though everyone wanted just to get to the end by express.
Sad that this kind of issue was so common (1x per month at least) that I blame them for not having efficient accident backup plans.
Yes, yes, I realize that there's the problem of having trains go express when they're all stacked up.
Why don't they just build out BART between Millbrae and Santa Clara? Once the Silicon Valley Extension is finished, BART will be almost a loop around the Bay except for that gap.
Plus the fact that the citizens (through their representatives) voted against it decades ago, so it was removed from the original plan. Given the current fuss among the citizenry over similar problems with running the nascent high-speed rail up the Caltrain corridor, I’d guess a vote today on BART would have the same outcome.
Couldn't they build a tunnel? With a tunnel, the requirements for eminent domain would be relatively limited (portals, station entrances, maybe some ventilation/utility buildings)
Sydney, Australia's new metro system which is being built relies mostly on tunnels (plus some conversion of existing surface lines, and elevated rail in outer suburban areas where land is relatively cheap). Sydney's metro area (5.2 million) isn't hugely larger than the Bay Area's (4.7 million).
And we are out of money / unwilling to pay for such projects. Australia is still relatively swimming in its natural resource boom and has funds to do that. And political willingness to invest in public transportation that's clean and efficient.
In California, public transport seems to be relegated to the status of a homeless mobility system / shelter, that most people reluctantly take and have to wonder why it's so badly operated. I don't think the idea will get far to tunnel under the rest of the peninsula. We can't even sort out the remaining 1 mile of Caltrain that was planned to connect to downtown SF and the Transbay center.
Aside from that, I believe there's a groundwater level problem under most of the places where such a line would go? I'm not an expert on that though.
On a per capita basis, the US is richer than Australia. According to 2019 IMF estimates, US's nominal GDP per capita is US$65,111 (ranked 7th), Australia's nominal GDP per capita is only US$53,825 (ranked 10th) [1]. Similarly, the US's PPP GDP per capita (2020 IMF estimates) is US$67,426 (ranked 10th), while Australia's is only US$54,799 (ranked 19th) [2].
The US is a richer country than Australia in both relative (per capita GDP) and absolute (overall GDP) terms (and both nominally and at PPP). If Australia can afford tunnels, why can't a richer country like the US afford them too? (Especially in the Bay Area Peninsula, which is one of the wealthiest areas in the whole of the US.)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)...
Australia's national debt is less than 1/2 of the US's in terms of % of GDP. (US has basically 100% of its annual GDP in debt). Australia has a lot more room to consider big projects as a result.
Putting that aside, a common trick used in countries like Australia and the UK is to keep big projects off the government's balance sheet through public-private partnerships – private corporations do most of the borrowing, not the government, and end up owning the infrastructure (often under some deal where it reverts to government ownership in 50 or 100 years time). But I get the impression that approach is far less common in the US. (Despite the fact that it is the more capitalist/free-market approach – allow private investors to own public infrastructure – and the US is generally thought of as a more capitalist/free-market country than the UK or Australia are.)
Public-private partnerships are often criticised as being inferior to government borrowing, due to higher private sector borrowing costs, and I agree with that criticism. But, even though I think it is best to build with government borrowing, if one has a government debt allergy preventing that, then building with private borrowing seems better than not building at all.
Call Trans could issue an apology and it wouldn't help. Because they would just have a daily apology log filled to the brim.
How confident are you that your clock wasn't 20 seconds slow?
https://www.electro-tech-online.com/threads/cell-phone-clock...
> I have a company where everyone has a phone that used the same calender program, same service, same type of phone, etc. At 8:50 and again at 9:00 every phone will ding to announce 9:00 meeting. There is no 0.01 second syncing of the phones. The time might be exactly the same but the "dings" happens over 30 seconds. Then one phone might be a good minute or more off. (usually mine) There are many times where the dings are within 5 seconds.
My phone is within a second.
a) you're in some weird bus terminal and 60 minutes before the flight the bus is starting to board to take passengers to the plane which is not close b) you're a 15 minute walk and 15 minutes security line away from that cluster of restaurants you decided not to stop at
Unless you have a tight next connection, in which case leaving late often means arriving late too, and thus missing that one.